constantine VS nim-stint

Percival cache attacks on Hyperthreading.

I go over some examples here: https://github.com/mratsim/constantine/issues/358#issuecomme...

`when myCondition():` instead of `if myCondition:` is done at compile-time.

Alternatively you can use a `static:` code block to force compile time evaluation. Or tag a function {.compileTime.} or tag function inputs with `static` modifier.

It is possible to create a compiler or an assembler running fully in Nim macros as well:

- https://github.com/mratsim/constantine/blob/master/constanti... (all that file runs at compile-time)

You can also implement Continuation-Passing-Style transformation at compile-time:

At a glance this sounds like a re-discovery of addition chains and using them to construct Pippenger algorithm. But applied to matrices instead of group elements.

See: https://github.com/mratsim/constantine/issues/37

I usually explain extension fields as similar to complex numbers with regards to reals.

I've collected a lot of extension fields references while working on my own implementation: https://github.com/mratsim/constantine/tree/master/constanti...

The best likely being

- Arithmetic of Finite Fields

Regarding your first question, you don't need to attack the hard-drive, for non constant-time crypto you can read power consumption or electromagnetic traces when the secret key is used to reconstruct it: - https://github.com/mratsim/constantine/wiki/Constant-time-arithmetics

Unfortunate name collision with my constant-time pairing-based cryptography library :/.

https://github.com/mratsim/constantine

KZG for sure yes, I actually already started implementing them: https://github.com/mratsim/constantine/tree/c2d716b/research/kzg_poly_commit

I have a small write-up on various details of elliptic curve crypto implementation here: https://github.com/mratsim/constantine/tree/master/constantine/elliptic

> I think the message is more nuanced

I thought it was more nuanced too as they were explaining how integer types can be derived, until I finished the article, and they really did just seem to be complaining that there's a mismatch between compile time and run time.

Dynamic types don't really solve the problems they mention as far as I can tell either (perhaps I am misunderstanding), they just don't provide any guarantees at all and so "work" in the loosest sense.

> otherwise wouldn't lisp with its homoiconicity and compile time macros fit the bill perfectly?

That's a good point, I do wonder why they didn't mention Lisp at all.

> we don't have a solution yet

What they want to do can, as far as I can see, be implemented in Nim easily in a standard, imperative form, without any declarative shenanigans. Indeed, it is implemented here: https://github.com/nim-lang/Nim/blob/ce44cf03cc4a78741c423b2...

Of course, that implementation is more complex than the one in the article because it handles a lot more.

At the end of the day, it's really a capability mismatch at the language level and the author even states this:

> Programming languages ought to be rethought.

I'd argue that Nim has been 'rethought' specifically to address the issues they mention. The language was built with extension in mind, and whilst the author states that macros are a bad thing, I get the impression this is because most languages implement them as tacked on substitution mechanisms (Rust/D), and/or are declarative rather than "simple" imperative processes. IMHO, most people want to write general code for compile time work (like Zig), not learn a new sub-language. The author states this as well.

Nim has a VM for running the language at compile time so you can do whatever you want, including the recursive type decomposition (for example: https://github.com/status-im/nim-stint). It also has 'real' macros that aren't substitutions but work on the core AST directly, can inspect types at compile time, and is a system language but also high level. It seems to solve their problems, but of course, they simply might not have used or even heard of it.