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The Lessons of Software Monoculture

digitalsurgeon writes "SD Times has a story by Jeff Duntemann where he explains the 'Software monoculture' and why Microsoft's products are known for security problems. Like many Microsoft enthusiasts he claims that it's the popularity and market share of Microsoft's products that are responsible, and he notes that the problem is largely with C/C++ and mostly because of the buffer overflow problems."

13 of 585 comments (clear)

  1. Does this mean C++ is dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can someone confirm this at NetCraft?

  2. Re:Tool by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 5, Funny
    and stop blaming the hammer for losing your pinky.

    That's kind of like ending up with a "null pointer" eh?

    --
    http://www.rootstrikers.org/
  3. Re:Popularity not the problem. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    how do i know any of you actually exist. How do i know i exist. Fuck, there goes sleeping for the night.

  4. C++ to blame by delta_avi_delta · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obviously it's all the fault of C++... because no other vendor but Microsoft uses this obscure and arcane language...

  5. Makes Sense by Fringex · · Score: 3, Funny

    Being the most popular always came with negativity. Honestly, why would anyone care about writing virii, worms and other means of computer assault on Linux. It fills an extremely small gap in the number of consumer desktops used worldwide. It is more fun to hash the Big Redmond Giant.

    You don't make something opensource if you wanna make money. That is a straight up fact. Have there been successes? Oh yeah, there have been plenty. If you wanna make the big bucks you keep it in house so no one can profit off your work. However, your company can't make money if you are continuously working on a product and not selling it. So does Microsoft release buggy code? Yeah.

    It is a matter of money. Bill Gates didn't start Microsoft because he wanted to touch lives, he made the company to make money. That is the general reason anyone starts a company. Dollar signs.

    So you have deadlines. A good example is the rush developement and release of EQ2. Hell you can even compare it to any EQ expansion. Full of bugs, exploits, instability, etc. Why? Money. You don't make money programming to make it perfect. You make money by having a product good enough that people will use it. Why else has EQ maintained a stable subscription base over five years. Granted there have been jumps in either direction but it has been stable enough to open more servers.

    Expansions like Gates of Discord, Luclin, Omens of War and Planes of Power all had more than their fair share of bugs. Money is the underlying issue. The expansions were good enough to release but not solid.

    The same can be said for Microsoft. Windows is good enough but can always be fixed through patches. If they are gonna keep it in house forever, then they will never make money.

  6. Re:Authors Impartiality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    NETCRAFT CONFIRMS IT!

  7. Re:Blaming the language... by mrjb · · Score: 3, Funny

    > God's own coding practices [...] He definitely must not have been following best coding practices. That's why it seemed the world was created in seven days. Anyone knows "Code like hell" programming is a classic mistake... Result: That 40-day flooding really wasn't supposed to happen. Same goes for the various plagues. Truth is, He's still debugging...

    --
    Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
  8. Re:Blaming the language... by Moraelin · · Score: 2, Funny

    I thought the flood was wiping the test data and starting with a clean database :P

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  9. Re:Blaming the language... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    a million ex-burger-flippers typing randomly on a million keyboards for a million years will eventually produce Longhorn

  10. Re:managed code by TFGeditor · · Score: 3, Funny

    "The CLI actually isn't a 'garbage collected language'. First, it isn't a language - it is a language infrastructure (the LI in CLI)."

    Gawd. I thought the discussion was about a Command Line Interpreter.

    I'm so old...

    --
    Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
  11. Re:Has NOTHING to do with language by hkroger · · Score: 2, Funny
    How many of you can honestly say "I have never, ever ignored a return code"?
    How may of you can honestly say "I have never, ever created an interface without possibility to change expected behaviour"?
    How may of you can honestly say "I have never, ever made a mistake while coding or designing program logic and flow"?

    If you answered "I can" to all three you are lying!
    ... or you have never done any programming?
  12. Re:C# by jayminer · · Score: 2, Funny

    I wouldn't be surprised if you are not aware of the fact that many languages can be compiled into Java Virtual Machine.

  13. Re:Has NOTHING to do with language by Sneakabout · · Score: 1, Funny

    I can say all those three things! I don't write code, you insensitive clod!

    --
    Sneakabout is a mysterious figure, having done too much mathematics.