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The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps

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Re: The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps

#51

Post by a_humean »

Santosh83 wrote: post #16
dharmab wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on early days of Rust in the Linux kernel, the segmentation of safe and unsafe code can significantly reduce the surface area within a kernel.

What's the uptake of Rust as far as Linux kernel dev goes? Is it being positively welcomed and seeing a rise in usage or is it still at PoC stage? Any ongoing rewrites of important subsystems?

Last I checked still very early days with most of the work/experimentation happening in the driver space. However, it doesn't seem like its facing a lot of resistence and Torvalds seems reasonably positive about it atm.

Re: The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps

#55

Post by DeathArrow »

jerf wrote: post #22
wodow wrote: post #6

Their "Appendix: Memory Safe Languages" lists: C#, Go, Java, Python, Rust & Swift

Really, the only memory unsafe languages still in use are C and C++. If it weren't for the behemoth of legacy code we'd really have this problem more-or-less licked. Unfortunately, that behemoth is still rampaging across the landscape. "Rewrite it in Rust" gets a bit of pushback, perhaps even justified, but at this point in time I'll take anything that just reduces that behemoth in size. The journey of a thousand mil…

>Really, the only memory unsafe languages still in use are C and C++.

Ada, Fortran, assembly?

Re: The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps

#56

Post by jorvi »

elromulous wrote: post #17

[flagged]

You can think of the NSA as being red team / blue team.

Red team wants to hack everyone with a negative value add for America, blue team wants Americans (mostly companies) to be as safe as possible from digital attacks.

This seems one of those blue team suggestions.

Re: The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps

#57

Post by andromeduck »

czbond wrote: post #50
merpnderp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Python listed there and not other languages like Ruby, Javascript or Perl?

Commenting bc I had the same question. My impression of historical Python is that is an old, partially arcane language that due to D.S/AI is now popular; I would initially think it would be no better than those other interpreted. Python does these things well... mainly due to pandas/dataframes/polars.

Python replaced Matlab too.

Re: The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps

#58

Post by baseballdork »

none_to_remain wrote: post #48
CJefferson wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next thing they'll be giving requirements for people building bridges, houses, and gas and electricity fittings. Seriously, I think the time has long since passed software needs regulating. It's a major part of modern society, and as far as I'm aware, most people aren't opposed to building standards in principle.

People figured out how to build buildings prior to creating building codes

And people figured out how to fly prior to the FAA. So what?

Re: The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps

#59

Post by lambdaone »

"Undefined behavior" in general is a nightmare. After memory safety, the next target should be the enforcement of underflow/overflow trapping. With the exception of the intentional use to implement modular arithmetic, underflow/overflow should always be an error condition.

Re: The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps

#60

Post by synergy20 »

chewmieser wrote: post #18
candiddevmike wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Oh boy... Nothing is mandated here. These are just suggestions from experts. Don't take them if you don't want to.

wait for gov contract projects mandate them in the fine prints, it's a signal that is serious enough for anyone interested in doing any software-related business with gov, for them, this is nearly the same as 'mandated'
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