from Hacker News

What is systems programming, really? (2018)

by fanf2 on 6/14/25, 8:42 PM with 12 comments

  • by zabzonk on 6/14/25, 10:23 PM

    I would say that systems programming is writing software to support users of a system - those using the operating system. The same users might also be using application software - say an accounting package. Maybe the application software interacts with particular systems software, maybe not.

    The implementation language doesn't matter. An example of a systems program is a distributed printer spooling program I wrote in ReXX on VM/CMS in the mid 80s. All of our VM/CMS users used it, because it was far more convenient than IBM's offering, and supported our pre-existing line printers and the physically distributed nature of our organisation.

  • by Ericson2314 on 6/14/25, 10:48 PM

    To quote myself elsewhere, systems programming is first and foremost cost center, not value center, programming.

    That explains why it's a bit dangerous for the programmer's career.

  • by khaledh on 6/15/25, 12:13 PM

    I tend to agree, but not quite fully. To me, it's not about low-level vs. high-level or distributed programming. Systems programming tend to fall into these categories:

    - Running and managing a single system: kernels, drivers, programming tools (compilers, interpreters, assemblers, libraries, linkers, loaders, etc), admin tools, package managers, graphics servers, etc.

    - Connecting multiple components/systems: protocol implementations (tcp/ip, rpc, etc), message brokers, servers/daemons (database, web, cache, etc), proxies, middleware, etc.

    - Virtualization: emulation, sandboxing (docker, wasm), hypervisors, etc.

  • by Jtsummers on 6/14/25, 10:37 PM

  • by znpy on 6/14/25, 10:11 PM

    I wish bcantrill would chime in and tell us his opinion, as somebody that’s been doing actual systems programming for the last 20+ years

  • by James_K on 6/15/25, 12:19 AM

    Programming for systems, duh.

  • by chmaynard on 6/14/25, 9:54 PM

    The author completely misses the point that the term "systems programming" is an abbreviation for "operating systems programming". His entire argument seems based on this misunderstanding. Time for a re-write.