Re: A Famous Security Bug

On 24/03/2024 23:42, Michael S wrote:

On Sun, 24 Mar 2024 13:49:43 -0700
Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:
 

bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
[...]

But what people want are the conveniences and familiarity of a HLL,
without the bloody-mindedness of an optimising C compiler.

[...]
>
Exactly which people want that?
>
The evidence suggests that, while some people undoubtedly want that
(and it's a perfectly legitimate desire), there isn't enough demand
to induce anyone to actually produce such a thing and for it to catch
on.

 Such things are produced all the time. A yes, they fail to catch on.
The most recent [half-hearted] attempt that didn't realize yet that it
has no chance is called zig.
 

Languages like this are usually better in some ways than C (there's plenty of scope for that with C - we can do a better job of designing a language now than 50 years ago, not least because we can expect more from tools than we could 50 years ago).
But they can never cover everything people want - people want contradictory things.  Thus for everyone (except perhaps the language designers themselves) such new languages have big disadvantages as well as big advantages, and they will be missing some key features, seen from that person's perspective.
And their execution models are invariably either only vaguely defined, or defined in terms of behaviour with an "as-if" rule to allow optimisation.  Which means they are no better than C for people who think compilers should be blind translators.  (And it also means that they will be no worse than C for people who understand more about programming languages and compilers, and for those that either don't know or don't care.)
Zig is a language I've looked at, and it does have some nice things. But it will be a /long/ time before it is something I could consider using for my work, so it would be hobby only.  And of course it has made some design decisions that I think are wrong, and are a big step down from the current leading alternative to C in many fields - C++.

Developers have had decades to define and implement the kind of
language you're talking about.  Why haven't they?
>

 Because C is juggernaut?
 

Yes, it has a /huge/ momentum.  That means that even if a new language comes along that is better than C in every way, it has to be /much/ better to make it worth the effort to change.  Rust is making a fair stab at this - it is no easy job.