Memory Safety and Client/Server Architecture: Key Concepts

This lecture discusses the principles of memory safety and the client/server architecture in systems design. It begins by defining memory safety, emphasizing the importance of pointer capabilities and safe dereferencing. The instructor explains that an execution is memory-safe if all pointer dereferences are safe, and a program is memory-safe if all possible executions are memory-safe. The lecture then transitions to client/server architecture, highlighting its significance in modularizing systems into separate address spaces. The instructor illustrates how this architecture facilitates message-based communication, contrasting it with local procedure calls. The concept of remote procedure calls (RPC) is introduced, demonstrating how it allows for remote execution while maintaining the appearance of local calls. The discussion includes the challenges of ensuring exactly-once semantics in RPC, addressing issues such as network failures and state management. The lecture concludes by summarizing the benefits of enforced modularization through memory safety and client/server design, emphasizing their role in modern system architectures.