Ha HA ! Good one ! I believe that the core of the problem with the C language is that is based upon abstracting the PDP-11 instruction set. CPUs, such as Intel/AMD x64 are vastly more complex so "optimising" C compilers are trying to make something simple take advantage of something far more complex. Perhaps we should call them "complexifying" compilers.
Generally, model-to-model transformations (which is effectively what compilers do under the covers) are easier to define when we transform from a higher level of abstraction to a lower level of abstraction. As folks in the MBSE field explain it, trying to put a pig together from sausages. On Wed, 5 Sep 2018 at 09:20, Charles Forsyth <charles.fors...@gmail.com> wrote: > Plan 9 C implements C by attempting to follow the programmer's > instructions, which is surprisingly useful in systems programming. > The big fat compilers work hard to find grounds to interpret those > instructions as "undefined behaviour". > > > On Sun, 2 Sep 2018 at 17:32, Chris McGee <newton...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi All, >> >> I'm reading this article about how they are going through the giant >> heaping pile of Linux kernel code and trying to come up with safer >> practices to avoid the "dangers" of C. The prevailing wisdom appears to be >> that things should eventually be rewritten in Rust some day. >> >> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/763641/c9a04da2a33af0a3/ >> >> I'm curious how the Plan 9 C compiler fits into this story. I know that >> it was designed to avoid many of the pitfalls of standard C. Does it try to >> address some of these dangers or is it focused on making code more readable >> so that problems are more apparent? >> >> How does everyone feel about the Plan 9/9front kernel? Have they gone >> through hardening/testing exercises over the years? I'm curious what tools >> are available to help discover bugs. >> >> Cheers, >> Chris >> >
