The Expensive Fictions of Low-Level Programming Languages
The article argues that low-level programming languages like C and C++ impose high costs through undefined behavior and complex memory management, leading to security vulnerabilities and developer inefficiency. It contends that the belief in their necessary performance advantages is often a fiction, and that safer high-level languages can achieve comparable results with fewer risks.
Background
- "Low-level" programming languages (like C, C++, and Rust) give programmers direct control over memory and hardware, unlike "high-level" languages (Python, JavaScript, Java) that handle those details automatically. This control comes with costs: bugs involving memory (buffer overflows, use-after-free) are notoriously hard to find and can cause crashes or security vulnerabilities.
- The article challenges the common belief that low-level languages are inherently faster or more efficient. It argues that the supposed performance advantages are often theoretical — real-world code includes extensive safety checks, workarounds, and complexity that erode those gains.
- This is part of a long-running debate in software engineering: safety and productivity vs. control and performance. The US government and major tech firms have recently urged a shift toward "memory-safe" languages (Rust, Go) to reduce security flaws, prompting pushback from defenders of C/C++.