https://www.infoworld.com/article/3714401/c-plus-plus-creator-rebuts-white-house-warning.html

Close Ad
infoworld
UNITED STATES

  * United States
  * United Kingdom

 
 
 
 
 
InfoWorld Logo
More from the Foundry Network

  * About Us |
  * Contact |
  * Republication Permissions |
  * Privacy Policy |
  * Cookie Policy |
  * Copyright Notice |
  * Terms of Service |
  * European Privacy Settings |
  * Member Preferences |
  * Advertising |
  * Foundry Careers |
  * Ad Choices |
  * E-commerce Links |
  * California: Do Not Sell My Personal Info |

  * Follow Us
  *  
  *  
  *  

  
x
Close

  * Home
  * Software Development
  * C++

C++ creator rebuts White House warning

Biden administration seems oblivious of the strengths of contemporary
C++ and the efforts to provide strong safety guarantees, Bjarne
Stroustrup said.

  * Share on Facebook
  * Share on Twitter
  * Share on LinkedIn
  * Share on Reddit
  * Share by Email
  * Print resource
  * 

Paul Krill By Paul Krill

Editor at Large, InfoWorld |

shutterstock 561382627 C++ programming language source code syntax
highlighting iunewind

C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup has defended the widely used
programming language in response to a Biden administration report
that calls on developers to use memory-safe languages and avoid using
vulnerable ones such as C++ and C.

In a March 15 response to an inquiry from InfoWorld, Stroustrup
pointed out strengths of C++, which was designed in 1979. "I find it
surprising that the writers of those government documents seem
oblivious of the strengths of contemporary C++ and the efforts to
provide strong safety guarantees," Stroustrup said. "On the other
hand, they seem to have realized that a programming language is just
one part of a tool chain, so that improved tools and development
processes are essential."

Safety improvement always has been a goal of C++ development efforts,
Stroustrup stressed. "Improving safety has been an aim of C++ from
day one and throughout its evolution. Just compare the K&R C language
with the earliest C++, and the early C++ with contemporary C++. My
CppCon 2023 keynote outlines that evolution," he said. "Much quality
C++ is written using techniques based on RAII (Resource Acquisition
Is Initialization), containers, and resource management pointers
rather than conventional C-style pointer messes."

The White House in a report released February 26 called on developers
to reduce the risk of cyber attacks by using programming languages
that do not have memory safety vulnerabilities. C++ and C were cited
as two examples of languages with memory safety vulnerabilities. A
November 2022 cybersecurity information sheet from the US National
Security Agency (NSA) cited C#, Go, Java, Python, and Rust as
languages considered to be memory-safe.

Stroustrup cited a number of efforts to improve C++ safety. "There
are two problems related to safety. Of the billions of lines of C++,
few completely follow modern guidelines, and peoples' notions of
which aspects of safety are important differ. I and the C++ standard
committee are trying to deal with that," he said. "Profiles is a
framework for specifying what guarantees a piece of code requires and
enable implementations to verify them. There are documents describing
that on the committee's website--look for WG21--and more are coming.
However, some of us are not in a mood to wait for the committee's
necessarily slow progress."

Profiles, Stroustrup said, "is a framework that allows us to
incrementally improve guarantees--e.g., to eliminate most range errors
relatively soon--and to gradually introduce guarantees into large code
bases through local static analysis and minimal run-time checks. My
long-term aim for C++ is and has been for C++ to offer type and
resource safety when and where needed. Maybe the current push for
memory safety--a subset of the guarantees I want--will prove helpful to
my efforts, which are shared by many in the C++ standards committee."

Stroustrup previously defended the safety of C++ against the NSA,
which recommended using memory-safe languages instead of C++ and C in
a November 2022 bulletin.

Next read this:

  * Why companies are leaving the cloud
  * 5 easy ways to run an LLM locally
  * Coding with AI: Tips and best practices from developers
  * Meet Zig: The modern alternative to C
  * What is generative AI? Artificial intelligence that creates
  * The best open source software of 2023

Related:

  * C++
  * Application Security
  * Programming Languages
  * Software Development

Paul Krill is an editor at large at InfoWorld, whose coverage focuses
on application development.

Follow

  *  
  *  
  *  

Copyright (c) 2024 IDG Communications, Inc.

InfoWorld Follow us

  *  
  *  
  *  

  * About Us
  * Contact
  * Republication Permissions
  * Privacy Policy
  * Cookie Policy
  * Copyright Notice
  * Terms of Service
  * European Privacy Settings
  * Member Preferences
  * Advertising
  * Foundry Careers
  * Ad Choices
  * E-commerce Links
  * California: Do Not Sell My Personal Info

Foundry

Copyright (c) 2024 IDG Communications, Inc.

Explore the Foundry Network descend

  * CIO
  * Computerworld
  * CSO Online
  * InfoWorld
  * Network World

[p]