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Re: Shepherd and Guille


From: Pierre Neidhardt
Subject: Re: Shepherd and Guille
Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2018 08:58:49 +0100
User-agent: mu4e 1.0; emacs 26.1

> the point about using GC/JIT/etc. languages for "critical" software like init
> seemed somewhat worth investigating.

Actually, why?  I read this, and to me it sounded like the following reasoning:
"if it's critical, then it has to be a _systems_ language, i.e. C or C++ (or
rust?)".

The author seems to contradict himself and be very confused about this.  If
you read the Shepherd paragraph, compare:

> The decision to write important system-level software in non-memory-safe 
> languages such as C and
> C++ has been criticised. 

vs.

> my concern is that it’s written in Guile, an interpreted (or
> bytecode-interpreted) language with garbage collection – and

Why is it a concern now that the author just said doing the other way around is
criticized?  Argumentation is completely lacking.

> I see both the “interpreted” and “garbage collection” parts as undesirable 
> for system-level software
> (especially for a potential init). 

Why?  How are the two related?  The author might be confabulating between kernel
and system-level.

> Interpreted software will be less efficient (if not in actual speed, since
> I’ll acknowledge that JITs can do amazing things, at least in memory usage)

So if not actual speed, then what is less efficient?  The author does not say...

Actually the more I read it, the more it sounds like a complete heap of
non-sense :D

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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