[cap-talk] Confessions of a C programmer

[David Wagner]

Bill Frantz  wrote:
>My last major project was the web-key server for CapROS. Like most
>real-world programming, it faced a deadline. What I needed from a language
>was:
>
>  Familarity - I learn languages slowly, and time spent learning a new one
>  needs to be justified.
>
>  Reliability - I don't want to spend time debugging the compiler and I
>  really don't want to debug a code generator which changes the semantics
>  of my program.
>
>  Minimal environment - The compiler and runtime should not depend on
>  anything but the non-privileged architecture of the hardware platform.
>  All privileged instructions/system calls should come from library
>  routines[1].
>
>  Library routines for required subsystems - I needed a SSL/TLS
>  implementation and ended up using OpenSSL, which is written in C. Being
>  able to call C programs would cover a lot of this requirement.
>  
>  Support for the target platform(s).
>
>The question is, what memory-safe languages even begin to meet these
>requirements?

Does Java meet your requirements?

I believe there are Java libraries for SSL; or you can use native
methods to interface with C libraries, if you prefer.

I confess I didn't understand the "Minimal environment" requirement
so I don't know if Java meets that one.  I think it meets all the
others.