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C with Safety - Cyclone
Paul Smith writes: "New Scientist is carrying a story about a redesigned version of the programming language C called Cyclone from AT&T labs. "The Cyclone compiler identifies segments of code that could eventually cause such problems using a "type-checking engine". This does not just look for specific strings of code, but analyses the code's purpose and singles out conflicts known to be potentially dangerous.""
buggy code to tell me when my code is buggy.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
C is *supposed* to be dangerous, damnit.
We had C, then C++, then C#. So shouldn't the next logical step be C followed by three vertical lines and three horizontal lines (that'd be C-tic-tac-toe)?
And isn't a cyclone an infinite loop? You have to like a scientist who uses the word humongous.
Someone created a language the enforces types and does bounds checking! It's news!
I have been beta testing the cyclone development environment for some time now. For mature cyclone development, the amount of code output generated is equal to that being dissipated due to bug tracking. The dissipation rate per unit area is code density times the lag coefficient times the CPU speed cubed (See Emanuel 1999 for details). One could either integrate a typical code profile over a range of radii from the projects center to the outer radius encompassing the core, or assume an average CPU speed for the inner core of the system. Doing the latter and using 40 m/s (90 mph) coding on a scale of radius 60 km (40 n.mi.), one gets a code dissipation rate (bug generation rate) of 1.5 x 1012 Watts. This is equivalent to about half the world-wide script generating capacity - also an amazing amount of bugs being produced!
Either method is an enormous amount of overhead being generated by Cyclone. However, one can see that the amount of lines of code released in a release (by creating overflows) that actually goes to maintaining the Cyclone System spiraling bugs is a huge ratio of 400 to 1.
Stick with C++ I think.
Am I the only one to whom this sounds like potentially a really bad idea? I mean, think about it, coding along one day:
#include
int main() {
printf("He
At this point, small, cute cartoon versions of Kernighan and Ritchie pop onto the screen and say "It looks like you're writing a Hello World program! Click here to check this program for bugs automatically..."
I'm just shuddering at the thought...
Compiling...
test.c
C:\stuff\test.c(3) : 'int main(void) {' : Error 0. Program is in C. This section of code could cause problems.
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Clearly what's needed is a new version of English that doesn't permit grammatical errors.
One day, a city slicker with a spotless seersucker suit and a perfectly pointy moustache was reported travelling from station to station, selling his new technology suite. It included remote manipulators for making repairs from a higher level, without having to go under the trains. It also came equipped with "parking brakes" for trains, to prevent them accidentally moving while they were under repair.
This new "high level" technology was a hit in many towns, where the young repair technicians were unenthusiastic about life with missing limbs. In addition, the new technology came with many interlocking "safeguard" mechanisms to make sure that no fittings were left unsecured when the repair was completed. This saved many a "crash".
But there remained many towns with older engineers, who had grown up doing things the "fast" way, repairing the trains on the fly (because things went faster that way!), and of course having the scars and stumps to show for it. They were also unenthusiastic about the "safeguards", declaring that they were "smarter than any newfangled machine", and could remember to close the latches and fittings themselves.
In one of these Ancient Telegraph Towns, one of the older engineers, Cyclone Bob, came up with his answer to the newfangled "high-level machines" -- special steel braces to wear over arms and legs while repairing the moving trains. "In most every case, these braces will protect your precious limbs from the hazards of moving wheels!", enthused Cyclone Bob.
The older engineers, who, when all was said and done, actually enjoyed mucking about under trains, and who had already paid their dues in missing limbs, were rather proud of the new braces, and wore them proudly. "My trains hardly ever crash now", they would say, "and now I don't always have to lose a leg to prove it!".
The younger, smarter engineers continued using their "high-level" machines, and were happy that they still had arms so they could snigger up their sleeves.