Demo env programming language support

[matthew-l-weber]

AeroWG has discussed a few different tiers/types of environments based on safety levels and this ticket seeks to capture notes around the supported programming languages.

Per matrix found here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_Safety_Integrity_Level#Comparison_with_Other_Hazard_Level_Standards

++ Safety Levels ++++++ Programming Languages ++
DO178C-E ------------------ Pretty much anything - (e.g., C/C++, GO, Rust, Python, Perl, TCL, Java, Ruby, JS)
ASIL A / DO178C-D -------- Pretty much anything - (e.g., C/C++, GO, Rust, Python, Perl, TCL, Java, Ruby, JS)
ASIL B / DO178C-C -------- Assembly, C/C++
ASIL C / DO178C-C -------- Assembly, C/C++
ASIL D / DO178C-B -------- Assembly, C/C++ (static binaries), ?Ada?
DO178C-A ----------------- Assembly, C (static binaries), ?Ada?

Notional configuration/build tiers - #59

For higher assurance cases, are those GCC or LLVM toolchains?

[matthew-l-weber]

From: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) <[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])> on behalf of Rob Woolley via lists.elisa.tech <[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2025 17:15
To: Martin Halle; [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Cc: Wood (US), Brian J; [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]); [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Subject: Re: [ELISA Aerospace WG] Aerospace WG discussion on GO lang support 
 
Hi Matthew,

I asked the question to get an idea of whether it was something that we should add to Space Grade Linux.

I have heard anecdotally that SpaceX is using it. I spoke directly with a space startup that was experimenting with porting golang to VxWorks.  I also see that golang was ported to RTEMs as a GSoC project in 2010.  It likely couldn't be used for the safety critical applications due to how it handles concurrency and how one would certify it.

I personally see it as being useful in 2 cases (1) where non-deterministic threading and high-latency is acceptable for communication across the network and (b) for control/business logic that is non-critical and can be used identically across multiple devices or projects.

My suggestion would be to document how to add it to SGL as an option with a simple example application and see if there is any interest in it.

Regards,
Rob

[matthew-l-weber]

Hi,

I think there is not much to document. AFAICT Go compiles to statically linked binaries by default. That means, as long as the correct target arch was chosen while compiling, adding a Go application just means copying over the ELF into the intird (or whichever mechanism is used to supply files to the Linux kernel).

A modulo to this is if the kernel is stripped down so significantly, that some syscalls which Go's runtime relies on, become unavailable. However, for this I think Go is an impedance mismatch anyhow. See [1] for a relevant discussion about this.

Kind Regards, Wanja