Re: C.A.R. Hoare on liability

[Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <27085883.0206190814.67fc4825@posting.google.com>, mjsilva697@earthlink.net (Mike Silva) writes:
> Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:<3D0E09BA.A492AA3D@despammed.com>...
>> Tying together two recent threads,
>> a quote from "The Emperor's Old Clothes":
>> 
>>     ... we asked our customers whether they wished us
>>     to provide an option to switch off these checks
>>     in the interests of efficiency on production runs. 
>>     Unanimously, they urged us not to--they already knew
>>     how frequently subscript errors occur on production
>>     runs where failure to detect them would be disastrous. 
>>     I note with fear and horror that even in 1980, language
>>     designers and users ahve not learned this lesson.
> 
> I sure don't understand this part.  It sounds as if "our customers"
> were saying that, yes, we know how important it is to have checks
> turned on even in production code, but, notwithstanding that
> knowledge, we simply can't be trusted to leave them on ourselves, and
> so we must be forced by the compiler to keep them turned on.  Very
> odd!

How about:

	We are never going to turn them off, so please don't make
	our user interface any more complicated than it already is.