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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,TO_NO_BRKTS_FROM_MSSP autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-10 07:33:16 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!newsranger.com!www.newsranger.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ From: Ted Dennison References: <9kpo9r$415@augusta.math.psu.edu> <5drpk9.l0e.ln@10.0.0.2> <9krhd2$6po@augusta.math.psu.edu> <3B7225A1.DC95C8A6@home.com> <3B73378B.EF7E2C10@home.com> Subject: Re: How Ada could have prevented the Red Code distributed denial of Message-ID: X-Abuse-Info: When contacting newsranger.com regarding abuse please X-Abuse-Info: forward the entire news article including headers or X-Abuse-Info: else we will not be able to process your request X-Complaints-To: abuse@newsranger.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 10:33:03 EDT Organization: http://www.newsranger.com Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 14:33:03 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11763 comp.lang.c:73406 comp.lang.c++:81545 Date: 2001-08-10T14:33:03+00:00 List-Id: In article <3B73378B.EF7E2C10@home.com>, Warren W. Gay VE3WWG says... > >Bart.Vanhauwaert@nowhere.be wrote: >> Don't be silly. Nothing is perfect. Any serious decision is a >> trade-off. > >You are correct that there are trade-offs. I guess what annoys >me is just how low the standard is for "good enough" in so >many circles. Microsoft's being one of the most offensive. As near as I can tell, they actually take software design theory *far* more seriously at Microsoft that most folks give them credit for. I think the issue here is that Microsoft happens to be the world's biggest believers in the time-tested "Worse is Better" design philosophy. (see http://www.ai.mit.edu/docs/articles/good-news/subsection3.2.1.html ). This is great for Microsoft, but no so great for things that need to be carefully designed in, like security and reliablity. But then, they are a publicly-traded company, so "great for Microsoft" trumps all other considerations for them. :-) A particularly relevent excerpt: --- A further benefit of the worse-is-better philosophy is that the programmer is conditioned to sacrifice some safety, convenience, and hassle... --- Note that in this particular context, "programmer"="user". (They were talking about programming languages and OS calls.). another relevant part: --- The lesson to be learned from this is that it is often undesirable to go for the right thing first. It is better to get half of the right thing available so that it spreads like a virus. Once people are hooked on it, take the time to improve it to 90% of the right thing. ---- Again, great for Microsoft, crappy for security. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com