Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by AlotOfReading 1455 days ago
The system as a whole used C, C++, Python, and some Java/JS-family stuff in the infrastructure backends. You can find a long tail of other languages scattered throughout the organization, like Go, Rust, Lisps, and Swift, etc. I wrote a fare-cost-calculator in Mathematica awhile ago, as an example.

As for storage systems, no idea. The stuff I know was all custom, but I was deep in the stack most of the time and don't do much with databases.
1 comments
Gigachad 1455 days ago
>The system as a whole used C, C++

It all makes sense now. Astounding its legal to use C/++ in a safety critical situation.

link
witcher_rat 1454 days ago
Uhh... you do realize tons of safety-critical systems in use today were written in C and C++, right? As in _most_ of them, for the past ~30 years?

Airplane systems, telecom equipment, medical equipment, satellite and space launch equipment, railway systems, etc., etc.

There's other languages used as well obviously, and even just assembly in some parts of some systems, but in terms of the majority it's C and/or C++.

link
AlotOfReading 1455 days ago
Yep, I somewhat agree. The C mostly comes from Linux [1]. For the rest, "there are reasons".

[1] https://ossna2020.sched.com/event/c3QN/there-is-no-store-for...

link
jfim 1455 days ago
C and C++ are used pretty extensively in the embedded world. For a lot of safety critical stuff though, typically a safer subset of those languages are used, such as MISRA C and MISRA C++, alongside static checkers and validated toolchains.
link