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From: machaffi@fred.cs.washington.edu (Scott MacHaffie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,alt.flame
Subject: Re: Errors aren't that simple
Message-ID: <10911@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 2 Mar 90 02:28:55 GMT
References: <39400075@m.cs.uiuc.edu% <8192@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Sender: news@cs.washington.edu
Reply-To: machaffi@fred.cs.washington.edu.cs.washington.edu (Scott MacHaffie)
Followup-To: misc.test
Organization: C Software Engineers, uninc.
Lines: 77

In article <8192@hubcap.clemson.edu% billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
%   The unsafe constructs within C are themselves sufficient evidence to
%   conclude that the C community, by choosing to use a language which has
%   many highly unsafe constructs and an almost total disregard for error 
%   prevention, does not hold error prevention in sufficiently high regard;

paraphrase:
I can't write code worth a damn, so no one else can either.

%   the failure of a password security system because no boundary checks 
%   were done on the length of the password (whereupon the intruder purposely
%   supplied a double-length password and thereby ensured that the left and
%   right sections of the password-validating data structure were compatible),
%   and similar cases demonstrate that the C language poses a serious obstacle
%   to the development of defect-minimal software.  For the cost of simply

paraphrase:
Someone else fucked up (or I made it up, one of the two) so I can use
that as an argument.

%   the recent national AT&T crash, I'd be willing to conjecture that all of 
%   AT&T's software developers could have been trained in software engineering
%   concepts and the Ada language, and supplied with Ada compilers as well.   

paraphrase:
ADA is perfect. No one has ever written a piece of ADA code with bugs in it.
If AT&T had used ADA their code would have worked without being tested.

%   The comments found in the Unix man pages I cited have been there for 
%   at least a decade, apparently going unchallenged by the rest of the 
%   C community.  This is despite the fact that the growth of C has been 

paraphrase:
Unix had bugs TEN WHOLE YEARS ago!

%   widely attributed to the Unix operating system being given away to 
%   so many universities -- if this attribution is correct, then Unix is
%   also responsible for helping to create the widespread attitude within 
%   the C community that defects are to be treated casually.  

paraphrase:
Hey, now I can try to flame Unix, too! Maybe I should cross-post to comp.unix
-- I'm sure they would appreciate knowing that they can't do any software
engineering with their systems.

%   It is entirely true that other language communities (BASIC, COBOL, etc.)
%   have problems along these lines which are arguably worse than those which
%   are clearly associated with the C community.  On the other hand, there are

paraphrase:
What the fuck, I can try to flame EVERYONE. After all, I am perfect.

%   other language communities which are doing a considerably better job of
%   spreading software engineering concepts and providing linguistic support
%   for their application (Ada, Eiffel, etc.).  The challenge for the C

paraphrase:
If I say it enough, maybe someone will believe me.

%   community is to join the language communities which are doing a good
%   job in these respects, as opposed to holding its existing reputation
%   as a community which contains an extremely high percentage of those who
%   regard themselves as hackers, and whose products repeatedly make national 
%   headlines with their spectacular failures.  Since C is a language which

paraphrase:
Look, I have made-up statistics to prove my point! And I can also ignore
counter-examples!

%   provides little or no support for defect prevention, one would expect
%   that the C community would naturally compensate by being extremely 
%   careful about always applying the very best software engineering 
%   practices.  Unfortunately, I don't think even the most dedicated 
%   C-backers would attempt to claim that this is presently the case.

paraphrase:
I'm not a C programmer, but I can damn well speak for all of them.