6 ms·

I think you are overlooking OCaml & Haskell (which can both be used skillfully to approach performance of C).

by yohanatan 12y ago

kryptiskt 12y ago
Haskell is great, but GHC's runtime system is 50000 lines of C.
- thirsteh 12y ago
  Which is relatively inconsequential as long as there's a clear boundary between things that can be manipulated by a user and the C code. It'd be better if it wasn't C at all, sure, but, from a security perspective I'd take a language with a C runtime over a language where code has to be carefully written in a memory-safe manner any day.
- zanny 12y ago
  GCC is written in C/C++. I don't think any of the compilers are dogfooding their language because its supposed to be reusing infrastructure. I'd hope an LLVM compiler for a language would eventually be dogfooded, though.
  - yohanatan 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_(compilers) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_(compilers) This is pretty much the first thing that everyone writes in their new programming language.
- zanny 12y ago
  GCC is written in C/C++. I don't think any of the compilers are dogfooding their language because its supposed to be reusing infrastructure. I'd hope an LLVM compiler for a language would eventually be dogfooded, though.
meowface 12y ago
Are there examples of either OCaml or Haskell being used for systems programming? I know that algorithmically they can achieve pretty close performance, but I don't think support is that great for low-level operations.
- tome 12y ago
  "Ivory" is a Haskell embedded domain specific language for writing safe C programs. One (very loose) way of thinking of it is that it compiles a restricted subset of Haskell to low level C. http://ivorylang.org/ http://ivorylang.org/
  - yohanatan 12y ago
    There is also 'Atom' which is an embedded DSL in Haskell for writing real-time embedded systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(programming_language) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(programming_language)
- thirsteh 12y ago
  It's hard to tell what you mean by "low-level operations." A lot of systems programming, particularly the GNU suite, just deals with manipulating files, sockets, and so on, and Haskell can do that just fine. Example: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Simple_Unix_tools http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Simple_Unix_tools
- tokenrove 12y ago
  You might consider Mirage OS (http://www.openmirage.org/ http://www.openmirage.org/) to be systems programming.
- more_original 12y ago
  Maybe you could have a look at "Unix system programming in OCaml"? http://ocamlunix.forge.ocamlcore.org/ http://ocamlunix.forge.ocamlcore.org/

I think you are overlooking OCaml & Haskell (which can both be used skillfully to approach performance of C).

kryptiskt 12y ago

Haskell is great, but GHC's runtime system is 50000 lines of C.

thirsteh 12y ago
Which is relatively inconsequential as long as there's a clear boundary between things that can be manipulated by a user and the C code. It'd be better if it wasn't C at all, sure, but, from a security perspective I'd take a language with a C runtime over a language where code has to be carefully written in a memory-safe manner any day.
zanny 12y ago
GCC is written in C/C++. I don't think any of the compilers are dogfooding their language because its supposed to be reusing infrastructure. I'd hope an LLVM compiler for a language would eventually be dogfooded, though.
- yohanatan 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_(compilers) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_(compilers) This is pretty much the first thing that everyone writes in their new programming language.
zanny 12y ago
GCC is written in C/C++. I don't think any of the compilers are dogfooding their language because its supposed to be reusing infrastructure. I'd hope an LLVM compiler for a language would eventually be dogfooded, though.

meowface 12y ago

Are there examples of either OCaml or Haskell being used for systems programming? I know that algorithmically they can achieve pretty close performance, but I don't think support is that great for low-level operations.

tome 12y ago
"Ivory" is a Haskell embedded domain specific language for writing safe C programs. One (very loose) way of thinking of it is that it compiles a restricted subset of Haskell to low level C. http://ivorylang.org/ http://ivorylang.org/
- yohanatan 12y ago
  There is also 'Atom' which is an embedded DSL in Haskell for writing real-time embedded systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(programming_language) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(programming_language)
thirsteh 12y ago
It's hard to tell what you mean by "low-level operations." A lot of systems programming, particularly the GNU suite, just deals with manipulating files, sockets, and so on, and Haskell can do that just fine. Example: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Simple_Unix_tools http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Simple_Unix_tools
tokenrove 12y ago
You might consider Mirage OS (http://www.openmirage.org/ http://www.openmirage.org/) to be systems programming.
more_original 12y ago
Maybe you could have a look at "Unix system programming in OCaml"? http://ocamlunix.forge.ocamlcore.org/ http://ocamlunix.forge.ocamlcore.org/