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0 pointstopspin2y ago0 comments

This is what the White House said: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Final-...

Interpreting this as "stop using C/C++" isn't much of a stretch. Yes, it is not a demand. Anticipating such a demand isn't a bad bet, however.

Who is an authority, anyhow? The White House is citing NIST, DHS, Microsoft, Cambridge DSCT, Google and others. Whom do you offer?

I don't like this myself. We're rapidly building tools that could conceivably solve memory safety in C/C++ code bases. I don't want C pilloried by Authority and its group thinking ways.

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bdw52042y ago

At most, the White House's opinion on C/C++ will impact government contractors and people who care about the White House's opinion on matters it isn't qualified to speak about.

I'd only be worried if I were in the business of selling software written in C/C++ to the government but a few campaign donations to politicians would probably get that fixed.

jandrewrogers2y ago

Most interesting parts of US government will buy and consume software written in C++ without qualification or reservation for the indefinite future. People are wishcasting, it isn’t a serious risk. New systems are being planned in C++ today and language choice isn’t even mentioned. Parts of government have a lot of experience with C++ in high reliability contexts.

There are many advanced systems in government written in C++ that would be impractical to deliver in any other language even if you were starting from scratch today. Extreme data intensity and throughput requirements are actually causing systems written in memory safe languages like Java to be replaced with C++ systems currently. Rust is often not a good fit for the software architectures required unless you are comfortable writing a lot of awkward unsafe code.

The government is pragmatic about programming languages, not ideological. They use both Rust and C++ in new systems but not for the same purpose, both have unique strengths in certain roles that ideologues are loathe to acknowledge. I use Rust and C++ the same way.

oasisaimlessly2y ago

> Rust is often not a good fit for the software architectures required unless you are comfortable writing a lot of awkward unsafe code.

If you have to write "a lot of awkward unsafe code" in Rust, you're doing something wrong. I use C++ rather than Rust, but any time I'm implementing any sort of non-trivial data structure or inter-thread communication, I encapsulate it in a "safe" interface that is impossible to misuse (at least in debug mode) and clearly deliniates the boundary at which e.g. a memory safety or data race audit would have to cover. In general, minimizing the volume and surface area of "unsafe" code is a generally useful heuristic in any systems language.

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