[HN Gopher] What is systems programming, really? (2018)
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       What is systems programming, really? (2018)
        
       Author : fanf2
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2025-06-14 20:42 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (willcrichton.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (willcrichton.net)
        
       | chmaynard wrote:
       | The author completely misses the point that the term "systems
       | programming" is an abbreviation for "operating systems
       | programming". His entire argument seems based on this
       | misunderstanding. Time for a re-write.
        
         | Yoric wrote:
         | Is it?
         | 
         | I seem to recall that "systems programming" was initially
         | penned meant what we now call "application development" [1]. I
         | realize that these days, the two tasks are considered very
         | different, but as far as I understand, that's "just" because we
         | now have access to high-level APIs, the likes of which didn't
         | exist when the name was invented.
         | 
         | In my book, it's "system programming" when you are writing an
         | application and you need to reach to lower-levels than what
         | your language/stdlib/framework typically allows. So the authors
         | of the DeepSeek training mechanism were doing system
         | programming when optimizing communication between cores, but
         | also anybody who sets out to optimize a Python-based app by
         | writing a Rust module, or a Rust developer when they're calling
         | directly into libc, or a C developer when they're writing
         | assembly or performing syscalls, etc. Of course, by this
         | definition, there's no such thing as a "systems programming
         | language", but there are languages that can serve for system
         | programming of other languages.
         | 
         | [1] Which seems to be confirmed by the article, in fact.
        
       | znpy wrote:
       | I wish bcantrill would chime in and tell us his opinion, as
       | somebody that's been doing actual systems programming for the
       | last 20+ years
        
       | zabzonk wrote:
       | I would say that systems programming is writing software to
       | support users of a system - those using the operating system. The
       | same users might also be using application software - say an
       | accounting package. Maybe the application software interacts with
       | particular systems software, maybe not.
       | 
       | The implementation language doesn't matter. An example of a
       | systems program is a distributed printer spooling program I wrote
       | in ReXX on VM/CMS in the mid 80s. All of our VM/CMS users used
       | it, because it was far more convenient than IBM's offering, and
       | supported our pre-existing line printers and the physically
       | distributed nature of our organisation.
        
       | Jtsummers wrote:
       | Past discussions:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35092049 - March 2023
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21731878 - December 2019
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17948265 - September 2018
        
       | Ericson2314 wrote:
       | To quote myself elsewhere, systems programming is first and
       | foremost cost center, not value center, programming.
       | 
       | That explains why it's a bit dangerous for the programmer's
       | career.
        
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