Hacker News Reader

Web apps are applications and are the opposite of systems software. Systems software would be the web server itself, or something that runs beneath the application layer.

Yes definitions are sometimes nebulous but that doesn’t mean words should lose all meaning and we should stop trying. Systems programming is a useful label for the boot stack, kernel, protocol implementations etc. which support the application layer.

View on HN

The "systems" label only means those languages can do a few more low-level things, nothing more. There's no reason not to use it for other things as well.

I know this is hammered to death on HN, but you could definitely argue memory safety is a reason not to use systems languages for anything else.

Granted though it means what you meant by "it". I read that as "a systems programming language", but if you specifically meant Nim then I think it can enable a GC.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com