A language-based system is a type of operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 that uses language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

 features to provide security, instead of or in addition to hardware mechanisms. In such systems, code referred to as the trusted base is responsible for approving programs for execution, assuring they cannot perform operations detrimental to the system's stability without first being detected and dealt with. A very common strategy of guaranteeing such operations are impossible is to base the system around a high-level language

High-level programming language

A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In comparison to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language elements, be easier to use, or be from the specification of the program, making the process of...

, such as Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

, whose design precludes dangerous constructs; many are entirely written in such a language, with only the minimum amount of low-level code

Low-level programming language

In computer science, a low-level programming language is a programming language that provides little or no abstraction from a computer's instruction set architecture. Generally this refers to either machine code or assembly language...

 being used. Since language-based systems can assure ahead of time that cannot do things that can damage the system (such as corrupting memory by dereferencing dangling pointer

Dangling pointer

Dangling pointers and wild pointers in computer programming are pointers that do not point to a valid object of the appropriate type. These are special cases of memory safety violations....

s), it is possible for them to avoid expensive address space switches needed by traditional OSes; because of this microkernel

Microkernel

In computer science, a microkernel is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system . These mechanisms include low-level address space management, thread management, and inter-process communication...

s are more popular than on traditional systems.

Examples

• UCSD P-system
• Burroughs MCP
• JX
  JX (operating system)
  JX is a microkernel operating system with both the kernel and applications implemented using the Java programming language.- Overview :JX is implemented as an extended Java Virtual Machine , adding support to the Java system for necessary features such as protection domains and hardware access,...
  
  
• Singularity
  Singularity (operating system)
  Singularity is an experimental operating system being built by Microsoft Research since 2003. It is intended as a highly-dependable OS in which the kernel, device drivers, and applications are all written in managed code.- Workings :...
  
  
• Oberon
• Midori
  Midori (operating system)
  Midori is the code name for a managed code operating system being developed by Microsoft Research. It has been reported to be a possible commercial implementation of the Singularity operating system, a research project started in 2003 to build a highly-dependable operating system in which the...
  
  
• Inferno
  Inferno (operating system)
  Inferno is a distributed operating system started at Bell Labs, but is now developed and maintained by Vita Nuova Holdings as free software. Inferno was based on the experience gained with Plan 9 from Bell Labs, and the further research of Bell Labs into operating systems, languages, on-the-fly...
  
  
• JNode
  JNode
  JNode is a free software project to create a Java platform operating system. The project has taken the unique direction of creating all the software in Java itself, with the exception of some assembly language to boot and load the system...
  
  
• Emerald
  Emerald (programming language)
  Emerald is a distributed, object-oriented programming language developed in the 1980s by Andrew P. Black, Norman C. Hutchinson, Eric Jul, and Henry M...