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> We have tools now such that if they had been around in the 60's/70's we wouldn't have these problems Not for kernel development we don't. The only modern, m
by gilgoomesh 12y ago
> We have tools now such that if they had been around in the 60's/70's we wouldn't have these problems
Not for kernel development we don't.
The only modern, memory-safe language that gets close(-ish) to the performance of C for kernel development is Rust and it's a long way from being stable enough for mainstream kernel development.
And even a safe language like Rust won't prevent escalation problems like this if you're placing too much trust in incoming data. That's a design problem that has nothing to do with languages or memory safety.
- adrianN 12y agoAda is a modern language that allows for very low level code and is about as fast as C.
- digi_owl 12y agoThats what the US military use on mission critical systems, right? Seem to recall reading that it is a pain to work with.
- pjmlp 12y agoAda is used in environments were human lifes are at risk life like life support systems, traffic control and so on. From FOSDEM talks its use has been increasing thanks to C lack of safety, even with MISRA C.
- digi_owl 12y agoYeah i guess that having the language enforce the rules makes for safer code than trying to impose safety externally.
- digi_owl 12y agoRust looks sexy. And i think Mozilla is using it to implement an alternative render/JS engine or something.
- pjmlp 12y agoYes we have. Xerox PARC systems were mainly developed in Mesa after some bootstrap work in BCPL. ETHZ OS were done in Modula-2, Oberon, Active Oberon. Olivetti and DEC were using Modula-3. Several OS were being done in Algol and PL/I dialects back when UNIX was being born. C's ubiquity is a consequence of UNIX adoption by some successful startups in the workstation market. If one of the other systems had enjoyed a similar adoption another safer systems programming language would have taken C's adoption.
- illumen 12y agoIf Minix had used something else, then Linus probably/might have used that.
- alkonaut 12y agoThe thing is; Rust could have been implemented long ago. It was triggered by Mozillas need for a parallell browser engine that is safe and doesn't crash all the time. One would have thought the same need would have existed for other code such as kernels and drivers for many years.