Hacker News Reader

Comment by zeveb | Hacker News Reader

Well, if you're running on a typical processor than any process can use pointer arithmetic to access memory, so you still need some sort of low-level memory protection mechanism.

On some hypothetical Lisp/high-level-language processor, that needn't be the case, of course, but I honestly don't think we'll ever see something like that again.

View on HN

> than any process can use pointer arithmetic to access memory,

The damage this can potentially cause can be prevented using proof-carrying code.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted.

Store applications as byte code or source code and use a trusted JIT to generate machine code. With a system-wide garbage collector and bounds checking you would have a memory safe single address space operating system.

> I honestly don't think we'll ever see something like that again.

Why?

Probably fragility and security issues in that type of system.

One of earlier works combining high-security and functional programming was a security kernel for Scheme48:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.37.4...

http://mumble.net/~jar/pubs/secureos/

That was the Scheme mathematically-verified in VLISP project:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PreScheme

There was also a mathematically-verified, Scheme CPU:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/pub/techreports/TR544.pdf

I imagine combining even these three components into an integrated systems would provide a lot more security and availability than the average desktop. The simplicity of the CPU might also aid in producing a NonStop-like solution for five 9's availability.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com