Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752956AbXLAJu0 (ORCPT ); Sat, 1 Dec 2007 04:50:26 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751457AbXLAJuJ (ORCPT ); Sat, 1 Dec 2007 04:50:09 -0500 Received: from hawking.rebel.net.au ([203.20.69.83]:35822 "EHLO hawking.rebel.net.au" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751420AbXLAJuH (ORCPT ); Sat, 1 Dec 2007 04:50:07 -0500 Message-ID: <47512E48.7080509@davidnewall.com> Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:20:00 +1030 From: David Newall User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070221 SeaMonkey/1.1.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Chris Snook CC: Ben.Crowhurst@stellatravel.co.uk, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Kernel Development & Objective-C References: <474EAD18.6040408@stellatravel.co.uk> <47502595.4020007@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <47502595.4020007@redhat.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1687 Lines: 34 Chris Snook wrote: > Ben Crowhurst wrote: >> Has Objective-C ever been considered for kernel development? > > No. Kernel programming requires what is essentially assembly language > with a lot of syntactic sugar, which C provides. I somewhat disagree. Kernel programming requires and deserves the same care, rigor and eye to details as all other serious systems. Whilst performance is always a consideration, high-level languages give a reward in ease of expression and improved reliability, such that a notional performance cost is easily justified. Occasionally, precise bit-diddling or tight timing requirements might necessitate use of assembly; even so, a lot of bit-diddling can be expressed in high-level languages. Kernel programming might require a scintilla of assembly language, but the very vast majority of it should be written in a high-level language. There's an old joke that claims, "real programmers can write FORTRAN in any language." It's true. Object orientation is a style of programming, not a language, and while certain languages have intrinsic support for this style, objects, methods, properties and inheritance can be probably be written in any language. It's an issue of putting in care and eye to detail. Linux could be written in Objective-C, it could be written in Pascal, but it is written in plain C, with a smattering of assembler. Does it need to be more complicated than that? -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/