[Info-vax] NSA on programming languages

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2022-11-14 18:46:59 +0000, Simon Clubley said:

> On 2022-11-11, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> 
>> <quote>
>> Examples of memory safe language include C#, Go, Java, Ruby?, Rust, and Swift.
>> </quote>
>> 
> 
> There's a language missing from that list.

Yes, there are various languages missing from that list. Hence the use 
of the word "include" there, and not a word such as "comprise".

> On a related note, I've just found out today that NVIDIA have made a 
> _very_ interesting decision with regards to moving towards using a 
> safer programming language:
> 
> https://developers.slashdot.org/story/22/11/13/010222/nvidia-security-team-what-if-we-just-stopped-using-c 
> 
> 
> I wonder if they will be a one-off or if more organisations will follow ?

There have been other organizations making a similar shift.

And it gets easier. Rust kernel support is now part of Linux. 
<https://docs.kernel.org/rust/index.html>

>From a few years ago, Microsoft has been pondering and prototyping 
Rust: 
<https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/11/07/using-rust-in-windows/>

Apple was hiring for folks to migrate existing C system into Rust from 
a few years ago, though with few details. ("The performance and 
security of the systems we build are critical. We interface directly to 
low-level Linux kernel interfaces, using asynchronous I/O and threads 
to distribute workload. Following a very successful first foray into 
Rust we are migrating an established codebase from C to Rust, and 
building new functionality primarily in Rust." )

As for other languages for that list, Google have added Carbon 
<https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang>, so we'll see how that 
works out.

This C-to-Rust transpiler looks like fun, not that I'd be in a rush to 
push the resulting (unsafe) Rust code into production: 
<https://github.com/immunant/c2rust>

As for transpiling or rewriting more generally, few places will go to 
the effort of replacing the existing C or C++ code—or the existing 
BLISS or Macro32 code, for that matter—to anything else. Not past 
incremental work and updates, or replacement when substantial updates 
are needed, or other issues arise. Issues such as when one vendor was 
replacing their existing Ada code due to (a lack of) compiler support 
on the target platform.


-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC