Programming language challenges in systems codes: why systems programmers still use C, and what to do about it

There have been major advances in programming languages over the last 20 years. Given this, it seems appropriate to ask why systems programmers continue to largely ignore these languages. What are the deficiencies in the eyes of the systems programmers? How have the efforts of the programming language community been misdirected (from their perspective)? What can/should the PL community do address this?As someone whose research straddles these areas, I was asked to give a talk at this year's PLOS workshop. What follows are my thoughts on this subject, which may or not represent those of other systems programmers.

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