Fil-C: Garbage In, Memory Safety Out! - Filip Pizlo | SSW 2026

Abstract: Conventional wisdom has it that C and C++ are not memory safe programming languages. A simple bug in one part of a C program can be used to achieve remote code execution even in the presence of sophisticated mitigations. The problem is severe enough to create great pressure on programmers to rewrite their code from C and C++ to other languages that are safer. This talk challenges the conventional wisdom by describing an implementation of C and C++ that achieves the same level of protection against memory safety exploits as even the safest languages. I will go into the details of Fil-C's compiler, language runtime, and some of the corpus of software that has been ported to it. Fil-C: https://fil-c.org/ Filip Pizlo: https://www.filpizlo.com/ Software Should Work: https://softwareshould.work Thank you to our Software Should Work 2026 sponsors: Antithesis: https://antithesis.com/ RWX: https://www.rwx.com/ Paytient: https://www.paytient.com/ Redbud VC: https://redbud.vc/ ParadeDB: https://www.paradedb.com/