>I agree to the extent that "Rust will save us" is a glib answer, but dismissing it completely is equally silly – safe-by-default is an excellent tool to help prevent many of the common sort of vulnerabilities we see in C code.
There have been all sorts of safe languages that are appropriate for image processing and other types of programs, but people apparently like programming in C more than they like secure software. It is hard to see how something like Common-Lisp/Ocaml/Haskell/Java/Eiffel/C#/Ada wouldn't be more than up to the task, with only a slight speed penalty. It seems more like a social issue than a technical one. Maybe Rust will finally be able to break through, but I wouldn't hold your breath.
There have been all sorts of safe languages that are appropriate for image processing and other types of programs, but people apparently like programming in C more than they like secure software. It is hard to see how something like Common-Lisp/Ocaml/Haskell/Java/Eiffel/C#/Ada wouldn't be more than up to the task, with only a slight speed penalty. It seems more like a social issue than a technical one. Maybe Rust will finally be able to break through, but I wouldn't hold your breath.