Comment by jstewartmobile
10 years ago
When I read things like this, I get a little hope that with the end of Moore's law, we will actually start improving the instruction set architecture in such a way that we can write performant software in higher-level languages instead of relying upon assembly++ languages like C, Go, and Rust.
I mean, with the number of VM languages out there like Java, PHP/Hack, .NET, various LISPs, etc. you'd figure that some hardware support for boxing/tagging/GC would be a standard feature by now, but nope. Instead, the best approach we have for secure and performant software with x86 is 1) write complicated system in tedious assembly++ 2) run under VM.
> you'd figure that some hardware support for boxing/tagging/GC would be a standard feature by now, but nope. Instead, the best approach we have for secure and performant software with x86 is 1) write complicated system in tedious assembly++ 2) run under VM.
The funny thing is that it all once was a standard feature of hardware, back in the Lisp Machines days.
Back to Burroughs architecture (if only!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems
Because a single architecture change will solve all our issues and not cause countless others (if only!).
Most likely not, but we surely wouldn't have the memory corruption ones.
No not really but I'm for the concept of the user privileges being built into the hardware
We already had that in the 60's and 70's.
It was the fact that AT&T could not charge money for UNIX and made its source available for free that changed that.
Check Burroughs, Xerox PARC Star, UK Royal Navy Flex among a few others.
I've always had fond memories of the Burroughs B1700 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_B1700) for such reasons.