From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00, LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107f24,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid107f24,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-06 08:37:41 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!psinet-eu-nl!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.functional Subject: Re: How Ada could have prevented the Red Code distributed denial of service attack. Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 11:21:59 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: <9kmcmo$eo6$1@nh.pace.co.uk> References: <3b690498.1111845720@news.worldonline.nl> <9kbu15$9bj@augusta.math.psu.edu> <3b6a453c.1193942215@news.worldonline.nl> <9keejl$fhj@augusta.math.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 136.170.200.133 X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 997111320 15110 136.170.200.133 (6 Aug 2001 15:22:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Aug 2001 15:22:00 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11375 comp.lang.c:72468 comp.lang.c++:80330 comp.lang.functional:7346 Date: 2001-08-06T15:22:00+00:00 List-Id: The thing that always bothers me about the "speed" argument is that there are really only a very small number of applications where it makes any difference. In all the rest of the applications, whatever (probably small, as you point out) penalty exists for having the checks in is usually grossly overshadowed by other inefficiencies in the design - running a descent profiler would spot you lots of places where you could buy back the overhead a hundredfold. And in most cases, it just plain doesn't matter. In your typical user app, most of the time is spent waiting for the user to key something in or click a button. Try compiling one of those sorts of apps with Ada runtime checks turned off and see if there is any performance improvement you can even notice. It might be measurable, but probably not noticable. A difference that makes no difference, *is* no difference! And ultimately, if you *really* persist in being an optimization freak about it, just compile with the checks off and you're still ahead of the game because a) you had the compile time checks that eliminated a certain collection of errors already and b) you're getting code that is going to be just as fast - maybe faster - than equivalent code from C (All other things being equal, of course. You've always got that business of language implementations varying so it is impossible to compare the efficiency of two languages - only their realizations.) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Ted Dennison" wrote in message news:mlDa7.16628$ar1.61586@www.newsranger.com... > > So really we are talking about trading a *theoretical* minor speed difference > (which may not even exist in reality, and can be gotten rid of with a little > work if it *does* exist) for safety (in the aggregate, a guaranteed lower > occurance of bugs and security breaches). That's not much of a trade in my book. > The "black-hat" security experts at CotDC seem to agree. :-) >