Re: Writing Linux Kernel Modules in Ada

[Coyo T Stormcaller <coyo@darkdna.net>]

Hadrien G. wrote:

> Le 29/10/2016 à 04:19, Coyo T Stormcaller a écrit :
>> artium@nihamkin.com wrote:
>>
>>> I am experimenting with writing Linux kernel modules in Ada and document
>>> my attempts.
>>>
>>> Thought some here would be interested to read about this:
>>>
>>> http://www.nihamkin.com/2016/11/23/writing-linux-modules-in-ada-part-1/
>>>
>>> https://github.com/alkhimey/Ada_Kernel_Module_Toolkit
>>>
>>>
>>> Any kind of criticism is welcomed.
>>
>> This is a fascinating concept. It would make sense, given how security
>> and stability focused Ada is. I wonder how Ada and Rust would compare on
>> various aspects.
>>
> 
> I would say that Rust is a relatively recent newcomer in the large
> family of languages that try to remain C-like while addressing the main
> flaws of C and C++, and bringing a couple of nice functional features
> from ML along the way, whereas Ada has a more original take on language
> design.
> 
> For an example, consider integer types. In Rust, you are expected to use
> signed or unsigned integer types with power-of-2 sizes ranging from 8
> bits to 64 bits. To a C99/C++11 developer, that's nothing new: they
> essentially took the sized int types from stdint.h and made them the
> default because they are much more portable than the legacy
> short/int/long trio.
> 
> In contrast, Ada tried to go further by decoupling the interface of
> integers from their implementation. When you define an integer type in
> Ada, you specify its range and leave it up to the implementation to
> decide which machine type will be used. This design leaves more room for
> hardware-specific compiler optimizations, like C's legacy short/int/long
> types, while still remaining perfectly portable.
> 
> Cheers,
> Hadrien

Fascinating!

I didn't know that about Rust.