Secure version of C++?

[Kris Carlson]

Hi - For Steve O and you all who understand this systems level much better than I do. An ignorant question: Isn't C as much a concern as C++? Low-level device drivers etc etc. - Kris

https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/safe_c_plusplus/

[Bradford Cottel]

My take is: this is all talking about human programming, not proof-carrying code (which usually will be done by AI, once first developed).

So, yes, ALL languages, Rust included!, are unsafe and are of concern unless they require provable characteristics. C, C++, Python, Rust, all of them.

If humans are involved, after the first core constitutions and fully verified proofs are made, then it should be considered unsafe code.

So imho, nothing new here, just read it as the last gasp of human-centric coding…?

~ Brad

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On Tue, Sep 17, 2024, at 8:44 AM, Kris Carlson wrote:

Hi - For Steve O and you all who understand this systems level much better than I do. An ignorant question: Isn't C as much a concern as C++? Low-level device drivers etc etc. - Kris

https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/safe_c_plusplus/

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[Jey Kottalam]

Isn't C as much a concern as C++?

 

Yes, but:

• C++ can be used in most situations where C is required. (C++ is a strict superset of C, except in an annoyingly pedantic technical standards-document language-lawyer sense.)
• C++ has additional features that are useful for creating abstractions assisting safer programming. Examples include RAII, smart pointers, etc
• The culture, features, and history of C++ make it more amenable to adding high-level extensions like this. Some would say that C++ is too open in this regard, with some famously misguided/complex features that were later taken out.

That said, I'll also note that:

• Everything noted above is easier/better/simpler in Rust. Though it can feel harder to make code "work" when needing to "fight the borrow checker", the abstractions in Rust are easier to reason about and work with.
• However, Rust does provide various escape hatches (unsafe) and doesn't prove logical correctness, so it's certainly not the same as programming in Idris or Lean.
  

-Jey

On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 8:44 AM Kris Carlson <carl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi - For Steve O and you all who understand this systems level much better than I do. An ignorant question: Isn't C as much a concern as C++? Low-level device drivers etc etc. - Kris

https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/safe_c_plusplus/

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[Kris Carlson]

Very helpful, thank you both. I spoke with a guy today who is building a 'crash-free' low-level language to replace C in AGI. I said the accelerationists will be supportive and the high p(doom) folks will want a crash switch, among other things.

[Quinn Dougherty]

> 

• > However, Rust does provide various escape hatches (unsafe) and doesn't prove logical correctness, so it's certainly not the same as programming in Idris or Lean.

Lean has `partial`, `sorry` escape hatch. So it's not obviously that much better than rust 

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