Language-based system

A language-based system is a type of operating system that uses language features to provide security, instead of or in addition to hardware mechanisms. In such systems, code referred to as the trusted base is responsible for approving programs for execution, assuring they cannot perform operations detrimental to the system's stability without first being detected and dealt with.[1] A very common strategy of guaranteeing that such operations are impossible is to base the system around a high-level language, such as Java, whose design precludes dangerous constructs; many are entirely written in such a language, with only the minimum amount of low-level code being used.[2] Since language-based systems can assure ahead of time that they cannot do things that can damage the system (such as corrupting memory by dereferencing dangling pointers), it is possible for them to avoid expensive address space switches needed by traditional OSes; because of this, microkernels are more popular than traditional systems. A more extreme form of this is a high-level language computer architecture, where the trusted base is pushed into hardware, and the entire system is written in a high-level language.

Examples
gollark: Indeed.
gollark: Well, you could write it yourself recursively.
gollark: Ah, `equal?` works fine, great.
gollark: Because implementing vectors myself is not interesting.
gollark: It's a waste of time so I generally prefer high level languages which actually have working features.

See also

References
  1. A Language-Based Approach to Security, Schneider F., Morrissett G. (Cornell University) and Harper R. (Carnegie Mellon University). Informatics: 10 Years Back, 10 Years Ahead. (2000)
  2. Michael Golm; Meik Felser; Christian Wawerish; Jürgen Kleinöder. "JX - A flexible Java Operating System (poster)". University of Erlangen. Retrieved 2007-04-21.


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