🚀 go-pugleaf

Phred <ppnerkDELETETHIS@yahoo.com> wrote
> William P.N. Smith <news05@compusmiths.com> wrote
>> Hank Arnold <rasilon@aol.com> wrote

>>> IMNSHO, MS was forced into this situation of having security
>>> problems by the user community. They were forced over and over
>>> again to maintain backward compatibility whenever they released a
>>> new OS. Look at how long it took to get "real" DOS out of the code.

>> Careful programming isn't forced on anyone, it's either part of your
>> business practices or it isn't.  M$ code has _always_ been quick and
>> dirty, and now the chickens have come home to roost in the form of
>> buffer overflows _everywhere_, and it's a monumental task (on the
>> order of rewriting everything from scratch) to patch the broken bits
>> (and then patch the patches, rinse lather repeat).

> This is something I don't understand.  I've never programmed in C, so
> I've no idea why anyone would program without "protecting" buffers
> somehow.  It just seems insane to me that you would overlook what,
> to me, seems as basic as the times table.  So why do they do it?

They dont, its complete bullshit.

> What "benefits" do programmers derive by allowing the possibility
> of buffer overflow?  Is it something to do with speed?  Simplicity?
> Source code size/transparency?  Or is it just perversity?

It is easier to code just hoping for the best.

>> Maybe the "user community" forced it on them by not demanding good
>> coding practices (however they would have done that), but I don't
>> have a lot of sympathy for the MicroSloth programmers.  Sure, the
>> users put up with buggy code, but that's not much of an excuse.

Or they forced it on MS by demanding that the OS be able to run
their current apps and didnt require them to replace everything.

OS/2 1.x flopped essentially because it required that, all new everything.

Win 3.x flew because it provided decent backwards compat with dos.

OS/2 2.x did attempt decent backwards
compat and flew like a lead ballon anyway.

XP basically runs most Win9x apps without too many problems.

>> Solutions?  I doubt there are any.

> How would the wider "user community" know whether MS's
> coding practices were good or bad?  Where do they get to
> see the source code to enable a judgement?  Could they
> make a credible judgement if they did see it?

Yeah, that line is completely silly.

> I suspect that, for Joe Blowand his mates, program glitches,
> inconsistencies, and vulnerabilities, are just things that happen
> and are unavoidable due to "the complexity" of it all.

Its more that they arent too keen on all new apps for the new OS.
Thats inevitably going to produce compromises, particularly if you
want to allow the badly coded apps to still run fine.

No point in trying to tell the end user that the app they like is a steaming
turd, they'll mostly assume you are lying even when that is accurate.