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<p><b>Systems programming</b>, or <b>system programming</b>, is the activity of programming<sup id="cite_ref-:0_1-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-:0-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="Computer" title="Computer">computer</a> <a href="System_software" title="System software">system software</a>. The primary distinguishing characteristic of systems programming when compared to <a href="Application_programming" class="mw-redirect" title="Application programming">application programming</a> is that application programming aims to produce software which provides services to the user directly (e.g. <a href="Word_processor" title="Word processor">word processor</a>), whereas systems programming aims to produce software and <a href="Software_platform" class="mw-redirect" title="Software platform">software platforms</a> which provide services to other software, are performance constrained, or both (e.g. <a href="Operating_system" title="Operating system">operating systems</a>, <a href="Computational_science" title="Computational science">computational science</a> applications, <a href="Game_engine" title="Game engine">game engines</a>, <a href="Automation#Industrial_automation" title="Automation">industrial automation</a>, and <a href="Software_as_a_service" title="Software as a service">software as a service</a> applications).<sup id="cite_ref-:0_1-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-:0-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>Systems programming requires a great degree of hardware awareness. Its goal is to achieve efficient use of available resources, either because the software itself is performance-critical or because even small efficiency improvements directly transform into significant savings of time or money.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Overview">Overview</h2></div>

<p>The following attributes characterize systems programming:

</p>

<ul><li>The <a href="Programmer" title="Programmer">programmer</a> can make assumptions about the hardware and other properties of the system that the program runs on, and will often exploit those properties, for example by using an <a href="Algorithm" title="Algorithm">algorithm</a> that is known to be efficient when used with specific hardware.</li>

<li>Usually a <a href="Low-level_programming_language" title="Low-level programming language">low-level programming language</a> or programming language dialect is used so that:

<ul><li>Programs can operate in resource-constrained environments</li>

<li>Programs can be efficient with little <a href="Run-time_system" class="mw-redirect" title="Run-time system">runtime</a> overhead, possibly having either a small <a href="Runtime_library" title="Runtime library">runtime library</a> or none at all</li>

<li>Programs may use direct and "raw" control over memory access and <a href="Control_flow" title="Control flow">control flow</a></li>

<li>The programmer may write parts of the program directly in <a href="Assembly_language" title="Assembly language">assembly language</a></li></ul></li>

<li>Often systems programs cannot be run in a <a href="Debugger" title="Debugger">debugger</a>. Running the program in a <a href="Computer_simulation" title="Computer simulation">simulated environment</a> can sometimes be used to reduce this problem.</li></ul>

<p>In systems programming, often limited programming facilities are available. The use of <a href="Garbage_collection_(computer_science)" title="Garbage collection (computer science)">automatic garbage collection</a> is not common and <a href="Debugging" title="Debugging">debugging</a> is sometimes hard to do. The <a href="Runtime_library" title="Runtime library">runtime library</a>, if available at all, is usually far less powerful, and does less error checking. Because of those limitations, <a href="System_monitoring" class="mw-redirect" title="System monitoring">monitoring</a> and <a href="Data_logging" class="mw-redirect" title="Data logging">logging</a> are often used; <a href="Operating_system" title="Operating system">operating systems</a> may have extremely elaborate logging subsystems.

</p><p>Implementing certain parts in operating systems and networking requires systems programming, for example implementing paging (<a href="Virtual_memory" title="Virtual memory">virtual memory</a>) or a <a href="Device_driver" title="Device driver">device driver</a> for an operating system.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="History">History</h2></div>

<p>Originally systems programmers invariably wrote in <a href="Assembly_language" title="Assembly language">assembly language</a>. Experiments with hardware support in <a href="High_level_languages" class="mw-redirect" title="High level languages">high level languages</a> in the late 1960s led to such languages as <a href="IBM_PL/S" title="IBM PL/S">PL/S</a>, <a href="BLISS" title="BLISS">BLISS</a>, <a href="BCPL" title="BCPL">BCPL</a>, and extended <a href="ALGOL" title="ALGOL">ALGOL</a> for <a href="Burroughs_large_systems" class="mw-redirect" title="Burroughs large systems">Burroughs large systems</a>. <a href="Forth_(programming_language)" title="Forth (programming language)">Forth</a> also has applications as a systems language.

In the 1970s, <a href="C_(programming_language)" title="C (programming language)">C</a> became widespread, aided by the growth of <a href="Unix" title="Unix">Unix</a>.

More recently a subset of <a href="C%2B%2B" title="C++">C++</a> called <a href="Embedded_C%2B%2B" title="Embedded C++">Embedded C++</a> has seen some use, for instance it is used in the I/O Kit drivers of <a href="MacOS" title="MacOS">macOS</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

Engineers working at <a href="Google" title="Google">Google</a> created <a href="Go_(programming_language)" title="Go (programming language)">Go</a> in 2007 to address developer productivity in large <a href="Distributed_computing" title="Distributed computing">distributed systems</a>, with developer-focused features such as <a href="Concurrency_(computer_science)" title="Concurrency (computer science)">Concurrency</a>, <a href="Garbage_collection_(computer_science)" title="Garbage collection (computer science)">Garbage Collection</a>, and faster program <a href="Compilation_(computing)" class="mw-redirect" title="Compilation (computing)">compilation</a> than C and C++.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

In 2015 <a href="Rust_(programming_language)" title="Rust (programming language)">Rust</a> came out, a general-purpose programming language often used in systems programming. Rust was designed with memory safety in mind and to be as performant as C and C++.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Alternative_meaning">Alternative meaning</h2></div>

<p>For historical reasons, some organizations use the term <i>systems programmer</i> to describe a job function which would be more accurately termed <a href="Systems_administrator" class="mw-redirect" title="Systems administrator">systems administrator</a>. This is particularly true in organizations whose computer resources have historically been dominated by <a href="Mainframe_computer" title="Mainframe computer">mainframes</a>, although the term is even used to describe job functions which do not involve mainframes. This usage arose because administration of <a href="IBM_mainframes" class="mw-redirect" title="IBM mainframes">IBM mainframes</a> often involved the writing of custom <a href="Assembler_code" class="mw-redirect" title="Assembler code">assembler code</a> (<a href="IBM_Basic_assembly_language_and_successors" title="IBM Basic assembly language and successors">IBM's Basic Assembly Language</a> (BAL)), which integrated with the <a href="Operating_system" title="Operating system">operating system</a> such as <a href="OS/MVS" class="mw-redirect" title="OS/MVS">OS/MVS</a>, <a href="DOS/VSE" class="mw-redirect" title="DOS/VSE">DOS/VSE</a> or <a href="VM/CMS" class="mw-redirect" title="VM/CMS">VM/CMS</a>. Indeed, some <a href="IBM" title="IBM">IBM</a> software products had substantial code contributions from customer programming staff. This type of programming is progressively less common, and increasingly done in C rather than Assembly, but the term <i>systems programmer</i> is still used as the de-facto job title for staff administering IBM mainframes even in cases where they do not regularly engage in systems programming activities.

</p>

<ul><li><a href="Ousterhout's_dichotomy" title="Ousterhout's dichotomy">Ousterhout's dichotomy</a></li>

<li><a href="System_programming_language" title="System programming language">System programming language</a></li>

<li><a href="Scripting_language" title="Scripting language">Scripting language</a></li>

<li><a href="Interrupt_handler" title="Interrupt handler">Interrupt handler</a></li>

<li><a href="Computer_programming" title="Computer programming">Computer Programming</a></li></ul>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>

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</style><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Lang-NEXT/Lang-NEXT-2014/Panel-Systems-Programming-Languages-in-2014-and-Beyond">"Panel: Systems Programming in 2014 and Beyond"</a>. Microsoft<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">4 December</span> 2015</span>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFApple_Inc2009" class="citation web cs1">Apple Inc (14 August 2009). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/DeviceDrivers/Conceptual/WritingDeviceDriver/CPluPlusRuntime/CPlusPlusRuntime.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000695-BAJIBFDE">"I/O Kit Device Driver Design Guidelines"</a>. <i>developer.apple.com</i>. Apple Inc<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">16 September</span> 2014</span>.</cite></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://go.dev/talks/2012/splash.article">"Go at Google: Language Design in the Service of Software Engineering - The Go Programming Language"</a>. <i>go.dev</i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2024-04-11</span></span>.</cite></span>

</li>

</ol></div></div>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Further_reading">Further reading</h2></div>

<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?&bibId=4177732">Systems Programming</a> by <a href="John_J._Donovan" title="John J. Donovan">John J. Donovan</a></li></ul>

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