Microsoft Azure CTO suggested that the industry should abandon C / C clients, but the father of C++ said that "executives are always infatuated with new things."
CTOnews.com Sept. 22, September 20, Microsoft Azure Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Mark Russinovich tweeted that the industry is advised to abandon the C / C++ programming language.
Mark Russinovich says it's time to stop creating any new projects using C / C++, and if you need scenarios in the non-GC language, Rust is recommended instead. For the sake of safety and reliability, the industry should declare that C / C++ has been deprecated. A large number of C / C++ will be maintained and developed for decades (or more), and he will prefer to use Rust for new tools.
Rust is considered by many to be the successor to C++ and has become the most popular programming language in StackOverflow's annual survey for seven years in a row. In addition, Rust is expected to be incorporated into Linux 6.1, so it is highly anticipated.
Rust has been used by technology giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta in recent years, and Microsoft has been talking about abandoning C / C++ and exploring Rust since 2019, while developing its own cloud-oriented memory security programming language called Project Verona. Therefore, Russinovich's call for the abandonment of C / C++ is not unprecedented.
According to Microsoft, about 70 per cent of the CVE it has repaired since 2006 is due to memory security issues. Eliminating these errors will significantly improve software security and reduce the cost of vulnerability repair.
CTOnews.com learned that foreign media The Register asked Microsoft whether Russinovich's proposal had been adopted company-wide, and Microsoft officials declined to comment.
However, Bjarne Stroustrup, the father of C++, responded by saying:
It is not uncommon for people-especially executives-to be infatuated with new things that promise to make their lives easier. In addition, supporting new things is far more exciting than solving known problems with old and well-known tools.
However, it usually takes years and great efforts for new languages to match mature languages in their wide range of applications. Enthusiasts seldom see this, and their comments are often one-sided.
In many cases, security is obviously critical, so I have been working to improve the security of C++ for many years.
Stroustrup said that guaranteed perfect typing and memory security can now be implemented in ISO C++, and that every "secure" language, including Rust, has a vulnerability that may allow for unsafe code. Replacing them or just keeping them safe is a daunting task, which must be done step by step, or a lot of unsafe C and old C++ code will last forever.
