What Languages are Windows, Mac OS X and Linux written in?

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+9 Q:

What Languages are Windows, Mac OS X and Linux written in?

I was just wondering who knows what programming languages Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are made up from and what languages are used for each part of the OS (ie: Kernel, plug-in architecture, GUI components, etc).

I assume that there are multiple languages for each and obviously I know the Linux kernel is written in C.

I'm totally guessing here that Mac OS X contains a lot of Objective-C code as it is Apple's language derived from NeXT.

Windows, I have heard contains C, C++ and Intel Assembly. Do Linux or Mac OS contain any Assembly code?

Also, are there scripting languages like Ruby, Python, etc used by the OS developers for scripting parts of the OS? What parts of the OS would be written in each language?

+1 A:

Windows: Mostly C and C++, some C#

Larry Osterman 2009-02-24 02:57:40

c#!!! NO WAY, REALLY??????!

Aaron 2009-02-24 03:02:44

.NET is shipped with Windows. A lot of .NET is in C#.

Jonathan Parker 2009-02-24 03:11:07

There's rumors that future versions (Windows 8 maybe) of windows will have some C++ code replaced with C#/.NET.

Jonathan Parker 2009-02-24 03:12:35

They've already managed a working OS (almost) completely in C#. It's called Singularity. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/singularity/

Randolpho 2009-02-24 03:32:08

C/C++ is managed(.net version of) C/C++

Sharique 2009-02-24 07:17:12

Luc M: Yes, there's C# code in Windows. Poke around and you'll find it..Net is shipped with the OS but it doesn't mean the OS is written using .Net.And Windows isn't Singularity. There's a huge difference between a research prototype and a real operating system.

Larry Osterman 2009-02-25 06:17:46

I'm pretty sure at least Windows XP can work entirely without any .NET runtime installed (I'm not sure about Vista), so there can't be any C# in there.

Joachim Sauer 2009-02-25 15:23:38

C# consists of bytecode and a virtual machine....if they used that in Windows it would make it rather slow... Oh... now i see.

Brock Woolf 2009-02-26 05:47:57

Obviously XP was released a long time before .Net so it would have no dependancy on .Net

1800 INFORMATION 2009-03-18 07:35:00

@Brock - you have some seriously wrong information there - C# compiles to IL or native machine code, from there the JIT compiles the IL to machine code when it is run. There is no bytecode and no virtual machine. Perhaps you are thinking of Java?

1800 INFORMATION 2009-03-18 07:36:18

@1800Information - C# compiles to machine code from there JIT compiles to machine code when run? I think you are the confused one. There IS bytecode and there IS a virtual machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Intermediate_Language

Brock Woolf 2009-04-07 21:53:44

+2 A:

You're right MacOSX has Objective-C in the core.

Windows C++

Linux C

About the scripting languages, no, they pretty much high level.

OscarRyz 2009-02-24 02:57:52

Windows in C: kernel, drivers, API. Only system applications and tools in C++, I guess. So it's more clear to say just C

abatishchev 2009-02-25 15:27:06

+17 A:

Windows: C++, kernel is in C
Mac: Objective C, kernel is in C (IO PnP subsystem is Embedded C++)
Linux: Most things are in C, many userland apps are in Python, KDE is all C++

Paul Betts 2009-02-24 02:58:07

+1 A:

The Linux kernel is mostly written in C (and a bit of assembly language, I'd imagine), but some of the important userspace utilities (programs) are shell scripts written in the Bash scripting language. Beyond that, it's sort of hard to define "Linux" since you basically build a Linux system by picking bits and pieces you want and putting them together, and depending on what an individual Linux user wants, you can get pretty much any language involved. (As Paul said, Python and C++ play important roles)

David Zaslavsky 2009-02-24 03:00:44

+2 A:

I have read or heard that Mac OS X is written mostly in Objective-C with some of the lower level parts, such as the kernel, and hardware device drivers written in C. I believe that Apple "eat(s) its own dog food", meaning that they write Mac OS X using their own Xcode Developer Tools. The GCC(GNU Compiler Collection) compiler-linker is the unix command line tool that xCode used for most of its compiling and/or linking of executables. Among other possible languages, I know GCC compiles source code from the C, Objective-C, C++ and Objective-C++ languages.

Patrick Cassell 2009-02-25 03:56:44

+1 A:

http://www.lextrait.com/vincent/implementations.html

this should helped

2009-02-25 04:59:26

+1 A:

Windows is obviously not written in C# (!)

Simply see the source code of Windows and you'll see...

2009-02-25 15:21:44

"Simply see the source code of Windows" if you're one of the few that is allowed/able to do that ...

Joachim Sauer 2009-02-25 15:24:10

There are a lot of Windows source code parts in Torrents, also a few reviews of it

abatishchev 2009-02-25 15:28:23

Parts of the Windows code have leaked out, years ago. See for instance this old thread: <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/15/71552/7795>. :)

unwind 2009-02-25 15:29:05

+2 A:

Mac OS X uses large amounts of C++ inside some libraries, but it isn't exposed as they're afraid of the ABI breaking.

alex strange 2009-02-27 06:07:54

ansaurus

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What Languages are Windows, Mac OS X and Linux written in?

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