Comment by consumer451
2 days ago
It seems to me that memory safety might be the difference between the software engineering and Software Engineering. As in, an actual Engineering discipline.
However, I should probably pipe down, as I would not call myself either one.
> memory safety might be the difference between the software engineering and Software Engineering. As in, an actual Engineering discipline.
I wouldn't go that far, what matters is the finished whole. Memory safety of the finished program is a critical factor and using a memory safe language makes it easier to achieve that goal.
However simply using a memory safe language doesn't make you a "Software Engineer" any more than using a certified I-beam makes someone a "Civil Engineer". What matters is that the finished structure/program meets the explicit and implicit requirements of safety, functionality, durability, cost, etc.
Not to mention that complex reliable systems are usually engineered out of much less reliable components.
Overall safety matters. Memory safety is just one factor. Log4Shell happened in Java, a GC language without pointer arithmetic.
Using seat belts is just one factor. People still die while wearing one, so it should not be compulsory.
Is how this kind of arguments always get received by security folks.
With Fil-C and Rust the memory safety shouldn't even be discussed. It should be the bare minimum.
Presence of worse bugs won't make memory bugs disappear.
Necessary versus sufficient condition, as they say in philosophy.
There are engineering standards where dynamic allocation and especially garbage collectors are banned. C is actually a perfectly approved language in these cases.
There are too many opensource projects that show that even with good engineering discipline humans are flawed creatures.
Memory safety is just little thing that makes sure that when you write code at 4am that it will not leak memory via trivial mistakes such as forgetting to free something, freeing something twice or passing a freed pointer. I believe AI agents shine here the most because the they do not get tired and are getting pretty damn predictable.
How many bugs in qmail though?
I don't think we should set our expectations based on an extreme outlier. qmail is special, and we can't expect most software to get to its level of security/safety.
Put another way: if you have to rely on programmer skill or attention to detail in order to guarantee something, that will always be a losing bet, on average. The existence of a tiny percentage of programmers that can clear that high bar does not make it a valid strategy.
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It had one bad cve it seems, but that's exactly what I mean. It only takes one mistake, of course you can learn and never make those mistakes again, however, that is an unrealistic expectation in software that receives hundreds of feature updates a year especially when it comes to core applications as basic as communication when it wants to support image previews, reels and whatnot.
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