One of the most common criticisms of the C programming language is that dynamically allocated objects are not automatically released. And those who say this are right: memory leaks are a very common issue in C code, including the Linux kernel. Does that mean that C is useless, and the whole kernel should be rewritten in Rust as soon as possible? Definitely not, and even though some code is being rewritten in Rust, the great majority of the new code added with every release is still in C, and that will not change any soon. Instead, we should try to mitigate current pitfalls with new solutions… or simply start using the existing ones, like the Linux kernel recently did.
Nicolas, that's exactly why tools like Valgrind exist.
Go up
Read only the most interesting posts
We'll find posts according to your preferences and create a whole feed from them. Just sign in to check it out.
word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word
C programming in UNIX/Linux
One of the most common criticisms of the C programming language is that dynamically allocated objects are not automatically released. And those who say this are right: memory leaks are a very common issue in C code, including the Linux kernel. Does that mean that C is useless, and the whole kernel should be rewritten in Rust as soon as possible? Definitely not, and even though some code is being rewritten in Rust, the great majority of the new code added with every release is still in C, and that will not change any soon. Instead, we should try to mitigate current pitfalls with new solutions… or simply start using the existing ones, like the Linux kernel recently did.
#linuxkernel_c_hackers