The benefits and costs of writing a POSIX kernel in a high-level language

Re:The benefits and costs of writing a POSIX kernel in a hig... by chocolatebunny on Monday October 08, 2018 @07:09PM (#18172106)

I don't think a lot of people will see this the same way you do. I think a lot of people will care about even a 1% degradation in performance. And people will prefer a tried and true operating system for security over something that hasn't been tested in the real world, even if it's designed to eliminate one class of security vulnerabilities.

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Re:The benefits and costs of writing a POSIX kernel in a hig... by dahart on Monday October 08, 2018 @10:30PM (#18172920)

Nobody suggested using untested code, parent said they’d trade a small amount of perf for more security. I do think a lot of people would make that trade, all else being equal, once a viable tested replacement actually exists. HLLs exist in the first place because a lot of people are willing to trade a little perf for more security, faster development, and lower costs.

That said, nobody’s disputing that a “lot” of people care about performance. It’s worth taking a look at the last slide of the presentation, which states clearly that if you care about performance, you should use C:

    Performance is paramount ⇒ use C (up to 15%)
    Minimize memory use ⇒ use C (↓ mem. budget, ↑ GC cost)
    Safety is paramount ⇒ use HLL (40 CVEs stopped)
    Performance merely important ⇒ use HLL (pay 15%, memory)

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Re:The benefits and costs of writing a POSIX kernel in a hig... by nickpsecurity on Monday October 08, 2018 @10:42PM (#18172952)

Or just profile-guided optimization and/or superoptimizers after using a HLL. ;)

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Re:The benefits and costs of writing a POSIX kernel in a hig... by ianai on Monday October 08, 2018 @10:03PM (#18172811)

Possibly many (all?) of the Microsoft/Windows shops/departments would agree.

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