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From: btrue@emdeng.Dayton.NCR.COM (Barry.True)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: C Community's Cavalier Attitude On Software Reliability
Message-ID: <255@emdeng.Dayton.NCR.COM>
Date: 5 Mar 90 15:32:48 GMT
References: <802@xyzzy.UUCP> <8230@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Reply-To: btrue@emdeng.UUCP (Barry.True)
Organization: NCR, E&M Dayton
Lines: 28

In article <8230@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
>
>    1) Unix.  (Example: the problem in which the double-length password
>                        was used by an intruder to bypass security, taking
>                        advantage of C's lack of boundary checking)

What has boundary checking got to do with the C Programming Language? It is
a problem with the particular implementation or the programmer who coded
the program.

>
>    2) AT&T's phone network (Example: recent crash, which was attributable 
>                                      to C having switch/break instead of
>                                      a safer case statement)
>
>    Now practically all programming languages are Turing-complete, so
>    anything which can be written correctly can theoretically be written
>    in any of them.  However, some programming languages (e.g., C) are
>    more likely to leave errors undetected than others.
>

Again, this is a programmer/implementation problem. Name me one programming
language in which a program may be written correctly in which ALL PROGRAMS
CAN BE WRITTEN CORRECTLY REGARDLESS OF THE PROGRAMMER DOING THE WRITING OR
THE IMPLEMENTATION AND ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH THE PROGRAM IS BEING WRITTEN?
Please state facts pertaining to your argument that the C language itself is dangerous/faulty before criticising the C programming community in general. I
take great exception to your argument specifically because of this flaw in
logic.