Building on Rock, Not Sand
robert.ocallahan.org
Building on Rock, Not Sand
1–10 of 112 posts
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#2We run high-load web services in something-other-than-c with managed memory and checked array access. It is native, 8/9 as fast as C, and it works. We will never have the budget to pay for the additional 1/9th that C would afford us, in terms of security concerns.
Yet, everyday, I have to field questions about why our low-level, network-facing system code is not written in C... old prejudices die hard.
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#3We run high-load web services in something-other-than-c with managed memory and checked array access. It is native, 8/9 as fast as C, and it works. We will never have the budget to pay for the additional 1/9th that C would afford us, in terms of security concerns. Yet, everyday, I have to field questions about why our low-level, network-facing system code is not written in C... old prejudices die hard.
Have you ever been asked to switch down into Assembler mid-function in C to solve timing issues in the hardware? I have... but that was 20 years ago!
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#4If you really want to build on "rock", check out Bedrock: http://plv.csail.mit.edu/bedrock/ . Don't just prove your program is memory safe, prove it satisfies arbitrary properties! (A bit tongue in cheek, but the tools are really cool). Check out http://adam.chlipala.net/cpdt/cpdt.pdf for a nice introduction.
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#5We run high-load web services in something-other-than-c with managed memory and checked array access. It is native, 8/9 as fast as C, and it works. We will never have the budget to pay for the additional 1/9th that C would afford us, in terms of security concerns. Yet, everyday, I have to field questions about why our low-level, network-facing system code is not written in C... old prejudices die hard.
What counters do you offer though? Or maybe reverse the question - why do they think you should use C? That last 1/9th performance? I'm pretty sure that last factor also isn't due to the language and there's still room for performance improvements.
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#6Novice question: isn't rust fatter?
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#7We run high-load web services in something-other-than-c with managed memory and checked array access. It is native, 8/9 as fast as C, and it works. We will never have the budget to pay for the additional 1/9th that C would afford us, in terms of security concerns. Yet, everyday, I have to field questions about why our low-level, network-facing system code is not written in C... old prejudices die hard.
"something-other-than-c"
Which letter?
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#8Another rust proponent lecturing the world on how they should rewrite everything in rust. yawn
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#9Another rust proponent lecturing the world on how they should rewrite everything in rust. yawn
The rust evangelism strike force stages yet another sortie!
Re: Building on Rock, Not Sand
#10Talk is cheap; show me the code. There's a lot of talk about rewriting some crucial pieces in Rust but no actual work to follow it.