Virtual Machines and the OS
Linked by Peter Gerdes on Mon 10th Jan 2005 17:35 UTC
Editorial As a recent ACM Queue article observes the evolution of computer language is toward later and later binding and evaluation. So while one might quibble about the virtues of Java or the CLI (also known as microsoft.net) it seems inevitable that more and more software will be written for or at least compiled to virtual machines. While this trend has many virtues, not the least of which is compatibility, current implementations have several drawbacks. However, by cleverly incorporating these features into the OS, or at least including support for them, we can overcome these limitations and in some cases even turn them into strengths.
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Re: caching is good
by Nicolai on Mon 10th Jan 2005 22:39 UTC

I wouldn't be so eager to jump in and try to force VM (java...) to be regular applications though. To a certain extent, we 'trust' our OS, our hardware to be perfect while programming. In a similar sense, you should eventually be able to 'trust' your JVM. Things like memory protection...aren't really relevent in a VM like java.

Oh, but if there is one thing that history (and security researches) tells us, it's that programs have bugs. They always do, and they always will, and nothing you do can change that.

Putting the VM into its own context is an additional security measure, that will greatly reduce the significance of any kind of exploit (or instability) that can be achieved via bugs in the VM.