From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754165AbXLAUCR (ORCPT ); Sat, 1 Dec 2007 15:02:17 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751847AbXLAUCA (ORCPT ); Sat, 1 Dec 2007 15:02:00 -0500 Received: from il.qumranet.com ([82.166.9.18]:59993 "EHLO il.qumranet.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751376AbXLAUB7 (ORCPT ); Sat, 1 Dec 2007 15:01:59 -0500 Message-ID: <4751BD23.7020104@argo.co.il> Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 21:59:31 +0200 From: Avi Kivity User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (X11/20071115) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Lennart Sorensen CC: Ben Crowhurst , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Kernel Development & Objective-C References: <474EAD18.6040408@stellatravel.co.uk> <20071130143445.GA2310@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> In-Reply-To: <20071130143445.GA2310@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Lennart Sorensen wrote: > On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 12:14:16PM +0000, Ben Crowhurst wrote: > >> Has Objective-C ever been considered for kernel development? >> > > Doesn't objective C essentially require a runtime to provide a lot of > the features of the language? If it does (as I suspect) then it is > totally unsiatable for kernel development. > > C also requires a (very minimal) runtime. And I don't see how having a runtime disqualifies a language from being usable in a kernel; the runtime is just one more library, either supplied by the compiler or by the kernel. > > Besides the kernel does a wonderful job doing object oriented design > where apropriate using C without any of the stupidities added by the > common OO languages Object orientation in C leaves much to be desired; see the huge number of void pointers and container_of()s in the kernel.