On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 1:36 PM, Jiří Zárevúcky
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On 18 February 2014 00:28, Ján Veselý <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> TLDR:
>> I think a C replacement should be more than one language trying to be
>> perfect and do everything, but rather a collection of languages, one
>> for each domain.
>>
>
> I completely agree. You seem to be implying that what I wrote is trying to
> be perfect for everything, which is a complete opposite of what I think I
> wrote about. C may be used for everything today, but that does not mean a "C
> replacement" should be similarly misused. Right now I consider only the
> bottom of the stack -- kernel, drivers and servers around it. Stuff that
> should be able to run with minimum support code and as much provable
> correctness as you can get.

the point I was trying to make was that even at the bottom of the
stack there is a plenty space for diversity.
to be more specific: the features you proposed would not be of
significant help when writing a usb hc driver, or usb bus driver, or
usbhub. or sb16.*
on the contrary, I would miss almost all the features mentioned by
Martin (fixed types, endian, alignment, ...)

* maybe with the exception of contracts, but asserts worked ok so far

>
> As for doing anything and everything, I would prefer a single core language
> with independent domain-specific extensions, than a separate incompatible
> language for every single piece of the system.

The paper I mentioned shows how the opposite approach, DSL with
connections to existing code, can be beneficial.
Arguably all drivers I worked on are rather simple, so my view is
probably biased, but my point is: ignore drivers, they are not going
to benefit. you can omit all the stuff you'd need to accommodate them,
and design better language for other use-cases.
I'm pretty sure similar point can be made for other relatively large
domains within OS (architecture support).


Jan

>
> -- Jirka Z.
>
>
>
>
>
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