Re:OpenSSL will release a high-severity issue fix on 25th
by profquail on Monday March 22, 2021 @08:55PM
(#26549598)
Sure, it’s important for a library to have C source code for portability. That doesn’t exclude implementing the code in another language (such as F*/FStar or Dafny) that has stronger out-of-the-box safety guarantees, then compiling it to portable C source code for distribution.
Re:OpenSSL will release a high-severity issue fix on 25th
by ancarda on Monday March 22, 2021 @05:47PM
(#26547685)
You're right there's a lot of tools out there to help with writing secure code in C. I suppose I feel safer knowing Rust enforces some memory safey, but that isn't guaranteed either -- you could just use unsafe{} blocks everywhere.
I think we should mitigate risk in serious software in many holistic ways such as formal verification, fuzzing, anomaly detection, good/defensive coding standards, code reviews, and so forth. Such can be accomplished in C, but it maybe easier in languages such as Rust. The advantage of C is ubiquitous portability, which is necessary for widely-used libraries.