For YEARS they have been slowly but surely killing the shell world. They were so prone on such trend that they:
Didn't develope its command line interfaces since the beginning of the 90's.
Didn't support implmentations of more advanced scripting tools like perl or python.
Claimed for years that shell suxxx. They marketed their system as a growing evolution from the crippled shell environment.
Granted that, in the future, all management would be through the GUI.
And now I am hearing that they are getting back to the start?
Interesting. I have seen several interesting things while I developped for Windows. and one of the things I was pretty sure, was that implementing shells or scripting tools was hard. Perl (native Win32) or bash (through cygwin) gave me always a sense of a certain handicap in relation on the *NIX world, where most of its control was based on the existence of shells. I could not get into the inner mechanics that ruled many Windows apps because their data was never supposed to be handled directly by shells. Note that many apps produce binary data, even when there is no clear need for it. So, if one needs to use perl or something similar to handle Windows data, one usually needs an interface or some tweaking on files. And, due to the fact that Windows lacks established standards for (almost) similar kinds of data, one needs to deal with different tools to deal with each piece of data.
A similar situation occurs also with file formats. Sometimes, the format of different versions of one and the same program varies so radically, that one is forced to deal with different interfaces for each version. That's also one of the reasons whyscripting tools didn't gain a wide acceptance in Windows.
Also one problem is that many programs on Windows base their interaction in a memory-to-memory basis, while *NIX still keeps a lot of its interchange in a filesystem basis.
So I am scheptic that M$ is able to do a serious move on this field. However I may understand why they are moving with a new scripting system. Frankly, with all the mess they created, perl and many other tools will never be able to have a fullscale use on Windows like in *NIX. But that depends on how far M$ will go on the development of this new system. If they will create some sort of Easy-VB-like scripting tool, it will not catch the souls of sysadmins. If they create a full-scale mutant like perl, they risk to give a new weapon for script-kiddies, but sysadmins will surely catch the wave.
First. Bush suxxx. Granted I am a leftist liberal, but that is not a crime of I'm out of the US...
Second. Don't push Mars to the table. Mars is a completely different system on its weather patterns, atmosphere parameters and distance to the Sun. It is unscientific and a little bit demagogic to call it up to Earth's table. On what concerns CO2 I my agree partially with you. Global warming is quite a silly stereotype people barely don't undersand. But it is a fact that the weather changed so wildly that it is time to think on how our human activity is affecting the climate.
Thirdly. Neither condoms or abstinence help avoiding unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted deseases. Sexual education does. Without it, people either ignore condoms or consider abstinence as a forbidden fruit that can be easily eaten at first opportunity. And this has nothing to do with leftist or conservative ideals. The problem of birth control and sexual deseases, together with condoms and abstinence has been here for centuries. And till now it is a plague in several parts of the world, no matter you call for condoms or abstinence.
You are partially wrong. While there is no doubt that average temperature has been going positive, there are several situations that lead to conclude that maximums and minimums have not been in place also. Right now, in central European Russia we are suffering the worst Winter since 50 years ago. For nearly all December we are getting an average -20 in several places. Right now, in some cities temperatures are beating the -40 limit. Last year we didn't have such a radical frost but it was largely colder than average. Note that for many regions in European Russia the average in December is -15 - -5, with episodical minimum limits of -20.
Summer floods have also presented an interesting pattern. Usually, a large section of East Europe gets hotter than +20 degrees (note all numbers are in centigrades). However, this last Summer has not only be too wet but also too cold. In Russia several regions beated the low records for Spring and early Summer. In our region, temperatures were frequently not higher than +15. And it was raining non-stop for several days. Meanwhile, in Siberia it was largely hotter than usual.There they entered Autumn with temperatures higher than +10 in many places.
Some other examples.
For some years I see snow falling in middle to late May, what is considered quite unusual for older generations.
In other situation, a highly traditional weather pattern seen here, suddenly broke for quite a long time. We are not too far from Moscow, so, it is usual to see Moscow's weather coming down here in two or three days. This year, either we had the same weather pattern as Moscow for several weeks, or we were generally colder than Moscow.
Meanwhile, while colder than usual, Moscow's green belt suffered one of its worst forest fires for many years. Due to the cold weather and these fires, for weeks Moscow was engolfed in a huge smog.
While I would not dispute the fact that the globe is getting hotter, I would advise to be careful on direct experiences. The weather is surely changing, but not in the stereotyped pattern that the partisans of global waring think.
Well I don't wanna point myself as a wonderchild but my earliest memory record is one of the Moon landings being shown on TV. Somehow this got fixed in my memory. As I recorded the room where this occured, later my father told me that this was the old home where we lived. We moved from that house when I was nearly on my two years. A little later I remember the night before my second birthday when a paper plant blowed up and my village was covered by a chlorine cloud. I remember my father holding me up, lots of shadows around, probably people and a terrible lack of air. Of course I didn't give a hint about what was going on. But later I discovered that my asthma crisis were due to that story.
In general I have a good picture of my childhood since my three years old.
It is curious to note that, among my brothers, the record varies a lot. My sister has also some good records of events that have happened before she was 4 years old. Another brother has some fantastic memory, bu he does not remember of things that happened before he was 5-6 years old. Another one carries some very fragmentary records of his life before he was 7-8 years, but one of them is surely before he was two.
As far as I know,based upon on my brother's and personal records, memory in the whole remains "alive" due to some critical, radical or traumatic circumstances. But it also can vanish. Till now I have a very fragmentary record of what have happened to me somewhere in the end of 1988. It was a very hard time and it was a terrible stress to me physically and psychologically. Frankly, I am sure that I have a whole month wiped out of my brain.
Among several of my friends, I have seen also wonderful things. One guy remembered his stay in the Red Sea when he was in his 4-5 years. Another one can't remember details of 5-6 years ago, bu he his terribly detailed on something that happened yesterday. Another can remember things to the very detail, as he recorded every important event as a picture.
Sincerly, I believe that the brain is a terrible wonder machine that still has lots of things to tell us.
Well, I have some very large experience on using several desktops. And I think I know enough about them to say that people will not change systems just for the desktop. While this thing is very important, the problem on using one or the other desktop is the range of services such system may offer and the way someone gets used to it.
During the middle of the 90's I saw lots of people that considered the Windows desktop as "horrible". But you would be admired to see that they used some highly primitive and simple apps made on DOS. Sysadmins linked all these apps with small batch files and highly primitive menus. And people were happy with it. When things started moving into Windows95, these people got lost. They couldn't get used to this new system for quite some long time. And most of them, till now, don't know what is the "Start" menu. They launch their programs from the icons laying in the desktop. And they don't give a Hell if the program is Internet Explorer or Mozilla if it carries the same interface (yeap I saw this funny thing some time ago). And not because it is better or worser but because it allows the same mechanical, routine movements without thinking about what's behind the GUI.
On *NIX, most of the choice around an interface is made on what you are offered at first. Most Mandrake people prefer KDE, Others give preference for Gnome. And, they rarely have seen they could have a choice. Due to the fact that they got used to these things, they rarely change sides. I, during my work on several interfaces in the very early ages of Linux, got used to the AfterStep interface. And I have noted that, today, I naturally prefer something like WindowMaker or BlackBox. This brings up an interesting effect. In two works, due to certain constraints, I use KDE or Gnome. And, for me it is pretty clear that 90% of these systems offer, are completely superfluous for me. But a mix of necessity and lazyness to change interfaces, keep me having them there.
Will people change to Linux because of the XP interface? No. They will change when you offer the same mechanics of using their machines everyday. And that means copying not only the interface per se, but also making all the horrors that people do with it and making every application look similar. When someone brings up that mess, people will change the OS. But not because it is Linux. Frankly, they will not note a difference.
Note. In certain cicumstances, it is possible today to offer systems carrying a range of services very similar to what Windows offer at start. I did that in 1999 with stations that were used only and exclusively for Internet browsing. When KDE is configured as much as possible as a Windows interface, a good mass of people do not give a hint about what OS they are working on. And this things was damn popular. While in Windows NT, these University classes had only 2500 users. When on Linux, there were no less than 7000. And just because the Linux was solid stable and fast... as the interfaces were nearly the same... And only after a talk or some weirdness on some program, people realised that they were not working on Windows.
However, I would not recomend to any sysadmin to see the horrors these people did with their desktops... Most of them looked as happy hippy vans...
Of course! Apart of security and privacy concerns, that was one of the things that several people noted right from start. As far as I remember, the first Hailstorm news on/. had several posters asking how M$ thought it could hold up millions of accounts, megatons of data and parseks of consumer demands without clogging and hampering certain things. Personally I thought, then, that we could seriously face a general stagnation on Internet, if M$ would manage to be implement it into another of its mega-embedded OS. Upon a critical point, M$ could not give anything more to its customers, no matter the resources it possesses. The only way to save things would be to restrict user's access and hamper development of new features. One do not need to be a Passport developper to understand these things. It is a very simple rule of economics: Your resources are always limited, and you cannot afford all your wishes. That applies to the simple consumer, organisation commercial or not, or a State.
The brightest example, which was pointed back in the early discussions, was USSR. They tried a lot to create an unique organism that afforded everything to everyone. No matter that the gigantic resources this country and its sattellites possessed, they failed. Why? Because they restricted all venues of alternative. They used every natural and working resource at their disposition but in the mean time payed the price by throwing all this into one objective - Communist Revolution. If they had lossen certain segments of their economies, probably they could have gone further. However, this would mean a slower pace and conflicts that they could not support under their monopolistic ideology. In the result, after a fast powerful startup, stagnation came up as the regime throwed more and more efforts on keeping things tight.
M$ faces the same fate as the USSR if it will keep trying to create such mastodons as Hailstorm. At first it will look great. Then, when the system grows in use and becomes saturated, it will be hard to change anything without breaking certain dependencies and create certain conflicts. Moreover, the resources will be mainly used to support the existing system, and little will remain to afford future expansions. As we humans have always a tendency to search the forbidden fruit, M$ would have huge problems. Either it should share it with someone else and break its monopolistic possession. Or it should try to keep people bound to the existing system, which means stagnation. Considering that Redmond's ideology is also very monopolistic, we may guess what would happen.
It's good that M$ may have thought twice before doing this mistake. Note that this was due to the fact that they could not afford even the primary objective of getting something working. However we all know that there are still people there who believe that M$ can do it all. So I believe that soon there will be some rumours out of Redmond about a second Hailstorm... in a cup of water....
... is that the PC market has not seen a Big, Bad and Ugly Game for years. PC market is very specific and sensible to certain specific games that demand a lot more than one can afford. Remember Doom? Remember the Quake series? Back when they came up, no console could ever hold up such beasts. And most PCs were quickly upgraded to fit the current game. The PC market highly depends on such bleeding edge games to live. Besides, these are games that frequently give birth to tweaks, features, hacks and lots of art. Doom is unbeatable till now by the number of ports, maps and features. Quake was the base for several popular games like Half-life series. Quake2 nearly reached the feat of becoming a basis for virtual worlds. Unfortunately, the market went down on Quake3 and Wolfenstein... They were not so breathtaking like their predecessors.
The only way to see the PC market reviving is to see another tide like those seen on Doom and Quake2 times. Something that is so wild and bleeding-edge, that people will forget for months what a console is, and return to frenzy upgrades and hacks. Frankly I have doubt that Doom3 would fit on such thing. But who knows?..
Anyone who see how sme articles are written, knows perfectly that "bibliography" is usually created as a "necessary evil". Most scientific articles are done basically in the light of several "obligatory templates": abstraction, main article, citations, bibliography and notes. Frequently, real authors are not the ones you see first in the header of the article but someone in the end of it. Also, sometimes, certain people do the most flagrant plagiates out of the work of their students or co-workers.
What I call "academical science" is full of huge problems, which sometimes reach the level of flagrant falsifications and demagogic manipulation of facts. While not being a scientist per se, I have seen how these things pass the limits ethics and moral in such a thing like Mars. There is one scientist who tragically died in a very strange situation. Apart of the conditions of the tragedy, there was one big "authority" on Mars who lied with all his teeth about the work of his deceased colleague. Frankly, it was shocking to see how this guy flagrantly and demagogically "reinterpreted" the intentions of the scientific work of his colleague. One should note that both guys were highly considered in the community. However, they were adversaries. One died, the other became a big scientific authority on Mars. One of the reasons, was that he made a lot to desmise the works that went against his theories
I wished to be so optimist like you... Unfortunately, while I have not seen anyone putting critical systems directly accessible through the Internet, there are enough "backdoor" channels to see very important things linked to Internet. Or corporate network so badly installed and maintained, that a small link to Internet will be enough to give huge problems to many people.
Well, on/. we frequently see some trolls that consider themselves so smart and experienced to say some enormities. And, I'm already seeing some saying the usual: "And so what? That's just another/. newsfud". Please, while/. is well fudded, there are things you should keep the mouth shut and think a little before saying something.
The submission shown here may look, partially innocent for house wifes and the common guy in the street. They have lived with so many hacks, virus and trojans, that there is not much to worry about that. Unfortunately, many people do not know that such silly big providers also support someone who is not so simple and humble like your personal computer. They may be segments of corporate networks, departments that are too remotely located, that it is far cheaper to link them to some provider, rather than spending money to create an isolated channel. You may understand this, and still think that the biggest problem for the majority is the fact that information can be stolen. Correct rationale, if we consider the "majority", but again, bullshit. The big problem can be one or two clients of this provider. Clients that, if something goes wrong there, no one of us may have time even to say "shit". And no one will care to put you in a shinny wooded coffin. The best you may expect is a few tons of concrete and a mixture of chemicals so that your body quickly decomposes... Or that your body is quickly turned into ashes...
The problem between big providers and such clients, is that, being a provider with reputation, dimension and emphasis, clients tend to forget some simple rules of the trade. They think that this huge provider does his homework and maintains a minimal level of protection. Meanwhile, these same clients, do not only forget to check the security of such links, but also forget about isolating such channels from their own critical sectors of activity. In the result, a malicious hacker may break-in in minutes into some critical zone. This may be a control station of some distribution system, an industrial zone, or the control room of the corporate network.
Such situations happen and happen too frequently to consider it mere incidents. Thankfully, many of these break-ins are made by people who still have the shoulders in their head. Thankfully, breaking into the majority of corporate networks still demands some art and skills. However, this situation may change, if we all start considering that such problems, like the one described on the submission, are mere "features" that one may live with. If you consider that it should be that way, then don't be admired to see some big factory dropping tons of shit into the air or water. Don't be admired that suddenly a whole communication network goes fool and even 911 doesn't work in the middle of some critical situation. Don't be admired that your company produces things that blast or short-circuit at first use. Don't be admired that the lights go off every 5 minutes and all your home electronics are burning out. These are not stories taken from the hat. These are very concrete scenarios of real holes found somewhere around.
These things do not happen now so frequently because Internet is in its very early age (and still many people, like engineers, do not trust it). But some of these holes are already there, waiting right around the corner for the first maniac script kiddie (yes, there are already holes that such lamers may exploit). If we keep this mood, of not caring about security, we will have all guarantees that something will seriously go wrong in the future.
I expect the next missions to the moon to be robotic.
Most of us have been expecting that since the middle of the 70's. However, with exception of 2-3 missions, we have not seen even coke cans being sent there. Frankly the problem is not how difficult is to send something or someone to the Moon. The problem is that 99% of the people only do care about Space when they check the day's prognosis for their sign... Probably, only when some astrologer will say that, sitting in the Moon, will make better predictions, we will see millions storming parliaments and congresses, demanding funds to set a ziggurath in the Moon.
I don't really get. Some of us here are either too pessimistic or too ultimative. And don't see the real mean of this news. And the news is: for years we haven't seen any major OS development. However, there are a few people who still break the ice. That's bad news with some light for hope.
For these last years we hanged over a few systems, majorly divided on three architectures: Windows/OS/2, *NIX, Apple/Mac. We had or have also such things like Amiga or Netware. However, we are trending into a world where we may get some weird mix Windows/*NIX. Frankly, in the bottom line, that's not bad. It's horrible. If you take into account the ideas, ideologies and theories about operating systems, which blossomed during the 70's and 80's, the Windows and *NIX architectures are pure crap. They were systems that look much like a temporary agreement between old and new theories. However, due to the fact that they became very popular, they seem to look tip-top for everyone. Unfortunately this popularity went so far that deeply froze the development of new systems.
Well, to some of us, it may look that we don't need any other systems and we should keep happy using and developing the present ones.Wrong. That's the same kind of behaviour one gets in a totalitarian regime: you're happy because you haven't seen through the Iron Courtain. This blindness can be dangerous as we may get very deep inside the crap. And when we realize that we need something else, it will be very difficult to do it, as we no longer have the experts, the theoretics, the engineers and developers capable of working from the zero line. BTW, this thing is already seen on many fields. If we do not support a stable path of development for such things, even if, presently, they would not be so bright and shiny like Windows or Linux, we surely will loose the capacity to have real choices in the future.
However, this MorphOS thing worries me on some details. The most is that, at their site, they not quite generous on giving information.
Did I hear things or is everybody ignoring some recent news about ISS? A few days ago I heard that USA and Russia had agreed to grow ISS's crew some people more by 2004 or 2006. Sincerly, I didn't take serious attention as I was running out to work and saw just a glimpse of some meeting showing on TV. Did anyone here saw this thing?
And how can this fit with this news?
On what concerns the objective of ISS... Well it was and it is a turkey... One of you guys pointed correctly. While politicians (both sides!) played Space Station to keep people happy, Science and all the rest went through the pipe.
The BOfH seetest dream...
on
Tornado in a Can
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· Score: 5, Funny
The BOfH seats at his desk... Calmly plays another party of Quake... Someone rings the door bell.
Who's there? - says the BOfH with some irritation that someone messed with his chance to break his 1374th frag record.
Oh, this is department XXX. You have a problem, the network doesn't work.
Couldn't you say that by the phone?..
Oh, well. We could but it was busy and we thought it was a lot easier to talk to you directly...
Well, come in... - The BOfH presses the button and the door opens...
Ooops sorry what is this funny small dark room here?
Oh, well. That's a small hall to avoid noises and dust coming up here. We have some sensitive equipement here... Just close the outdoor so I can open the inner door...
Oh, cool. Yeah, you amy be right, you have quite a dusty corridor just outside, you kn.. BAHM! FRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
A bunch of dust flows over the corridor, the BOfH calmly concludes: "No person, no problem... back to the game..."
As many people noted here, this thing is more about economics and the use of present technologies. While not being an expert on this field, I cannot believe that we are reaching the real physical limit of computing. For a simple reason... There is still a machine that is much more powerful than the fastest chip around the market. Yes, we have already see machines that can vastly outperform it. But they can't do it only in very specific tasks. And, besides, they can't do it without the help of that same machine. Anyway, the density of this machine is still much higher than the equivalent dimension in modern waffles.
Sincerly, I think we still will take some good years even to approach the capacity that hides behind the eyes that sees this text. But does this means that we have no other alternatives? Well, present chips work mainly on electron interchanges, and we still have light as an unexplored field.
And to those who say OS/2 was good, remember that this is where LanMan was born. We are still paying the price for this with ANY MSFT based lan, weak encryption, NetBIOS exploits, etc.
Back when Windows 3.11 was still alive, lots of people warned Microsoft that NetBIOS was NEVER intended to get out of the small LAN. However M$ did a lot, not only to expand it over bridges and routers, but also ported the damn thing over IP. While I am not a programmer no longer, in those times I DID program, and I programmed some interesting things with NetBIOS, sometimes at very raw level. Every person who saw the specs, documents and the thing itself KNEW that NetBIOS was a simple protocol for small networks and majorly supposed to work on TokenRing, where packet transfer is more controlled than Ethernet. For major networks people were supposed to use X.25 and similar stuff. While there were serious internal weaknesses on NetBIOS protocol, the major problem came when M$ just spread it just as any other protocol. So better thank M$ for caring for its customers.
All of the sudden, Microsoft refuses to license code to IBM, and the operating system dies.
What do you mean by this? Frankly, OS/2 didn't die on M$s eyes for this. Yes they trowed out the towell back in 1987. Punched the child in 1992. And cut the youngsters throat somewhere near 1995. However note that for quite some time, Windows was well known as the OS/2-"Frankenstein", as its code was vastly based on it. Frankly the story of the death of OS/2 is a little more complex than this. It started with the fact that IBM choose to throw away the PC architecture and its clones overborad. And waited that, sooner or later, the makority would be happily playing PS/2+OS/2+... Then it was the several "treasons" Microsoft did while being a member of OS/2 team. Third it was the fact that support and maintenance was initially bad as this system was firstly oriented as a support system for a bigger ine of systems. And fourth, when IBM did see the mistake, it was too late to recover. The market was already oriented through Wintel and it didn't make any signs of taking seriously the efforts IBM did to recover its system. When they did came with OS/2 v.3, the market was already in shambles, due to M$ predatory policies, and barely could afford any risk to support IBM.
Well there can be other factors. But sincerly, the History of OS/2 is too complex to just point one finger to someone. However, M$ did play one of the most negative roles here. Being one of the creators, their behaviour through their partner was far from beautiful. And even if we knew IBM as the Evil Empire, M$ just played here like a Jedi of the worst taste.
My congratulations to both of them and hope that/. and you will still be here to speak about grandsons and all the interesting things that ocurred since a few students decided to play news for nerds and stuff that matters.
You just don't take the point. We are talking here about corrots and apples. Your ideas and considerations are purely based on the fact that you ignore the fact that code is all equal for machines. You make such remarkable distinctions between languages but forget that the machine, doesn't give a Hell if you write in C or Java. C, Java and most languages are not insecure by themselves. There is nothing in C to make you automatically fall into buffer overflows. It is the way the machine processes the code and data that creates it.
And remember. C is just human macro-assembler. You can make even more pretty buffer overflows in Assembler or machine code.
Your opinion for the irrelevance of the real machine is not perfectly correct. First note the overblow of putting a virtual machine over the real one. Second, the insecurity of the real machine remains at the same level. The problem of security in Java is that is quite difficult to go all the way down to explore something in the border between JVM and the host machine.
The use of JNI does weak Java security. Frankly this could rise serious problems in the future. But comparing it to C is something I wouldn't risk to do. C code, done the right way, can be a lot more secure than any Java code. I have seen such pieces of code. Gigantic marvels where speed is combined to nearly military security. However it costs a lot more to create such code than using Java. Choosing each of the ways depends highly on the priorities, guarantees and needs you have for the code. Claiming that one piece of code is far better than other, here, is very difficult.
Here one may ask. But if one combines real ironmade C with.NET, the code would be quite full-proof. Correct. But does anyone think that 99% of developers would be able to do that? Without an HOWTO-MAKE-SECURE-.NET-APPS-FOR-REAL-DUMMIES we will see sure trouble arounf here. Besides, even if that HOWTO existed, 90% of the people would not give a dman about it.
And, once again, if you read me well you may see that I don't give a Hell to C libraries.The problem is on the freedom to code.NET and its interaction with the most raw of all things - the binary code.
First, keep the ranting for yourself. Second, do keep C out of the story as I didn't brought it up and you don't make pretty faces playing with my words. And third, check up how can a network system dealing with the most raw code of modern architectures, claim that can be secure and even claim that it can, at the same time, manage that security. For this I highly recomend you to study a little bit about processors. And then you may see that C, Basic, Java or even.NET have nothing to do with the main reason for buffer overflows. The problem lays right over the hardware. Giving it a chance to play overflows, is enough to give any potential trouble even to the most secured environment.
BTW. That's why that in some military environments, Intel-alike machines are strictly verbotten.
But why do we need to spread the monstrosity is beyond me.
Surely you are not aware of the intentions of the "Ultimate Evil", that deep Artificial Soul of the early Era of Computing, that seeks to spread a computer over every house and turn the dimensions of every PC into ENIAC proportions.
But if Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest owner of Linux software... I believe that BG would be calling now a major pow-wow in Redmond.
As I told to one other guy here, the problem of buffer overruns is not withing the language only but also with the damn system you work with. AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH.NET! And you nearly note that thing:
Environments like Java, Python and.NET (excepting unmanged code) eliminate the posibility of that class of error, making them far more suitable from that point of view.
Exactly, that's what.NET is completely weak. In certain architectures, you cannot avoid completely the chance for buffer overruns. Even Java, on an Intel machine, carries always the potential for such trouble. Even a Linux kernel, carrying special code to control buffer overruns cannot guarantee an 100% security (probably 99,9999 but never 100%).
Now can you tell me that a supersecured environment like.NET that, still allows you to contact some piece of trash like C can be considered secure? That reminds me of some supersecured building, cameras and signalisation everywhere, which some director broke by entering through the backdoor.
And before talking about "foggiest clues", go learn something about how programming languages are seen by the computer. I highly recomend you someone like Donald Knuth...
And besides people. Keep C out of this discussion. C is not to be blamed for all the problems. C just gives instructions to the processor. If the processor cannot give a shit of a difference between code and data, that's a question to be asked to those who created it. Probably they will say it was a lot cheaper and effective to do it that way. And maybe they were right. However, every piece of code/data, entering the damn processor, has always the chance to put that guy nuts. And C here has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Impossible pal. The problem of buffer overflows is related not only to the programming language itself but also the the architecture you run the programs on. Intel, AMDs and alikes are prone to buffer overflows because they do not make strict distinctions between code and data. While one works in such architectures, the potential of exploits is always above zero.
C#, like Java, may not be so prone to buffer overruns while they remain in a certain virtual architecture that avoids many of the weaknesses of the real processors. However,.NET is more deeply integrated to other systems and environments than Java. At least I don't see those same strict barriers that would block java application environments, from using C/C++ library functions or vice-versa. In any case, the.NET infrastructure is much more loosy in this. Now C is simply and generally assembler for humans. In fact, it is the bottom line of the architecture you work with. C++ is just a more complex frame, but is is not so far from C. Saying that there is nothing dangerous in this interaction, is not only stupid but irresponsible.
Slashdot Mirror
For YEARS they have been slowly but surely killing the shell world. They were so prone on such trend that they:
Didn't develope its command line interfaces since the beginning of the 90's.
Didn't support implmentations of more advanced scripting tools like perl or python.
Claimed for years that shell suxxx. They marketed their system as a growing evolution from the crippled shell environment.
Granted that, in the future, all management would be through the GUI.
And now I am hearing that they are getting back to the start?
Interesting. I have seen several interesting things while I developped for Windows. and one of the things I was pretty sure, was that implementing shells or scripting tools was hard. Perl (native Win32) or bash (through cygwin) gave me always a sense of a certain handicap in relation on the *NIX world, where most of its control was based on the existence of shells. I could not get into the inner mechanics that ruled many Windows apps because their data was never supposed to be handled directly by shells. Note that many apps produce binary data, even when there is no clear need for it. So, if one needs to use perl or something similar to handle Windows data, one usually needs an interface or some tweaking on files. And, due to the fact that Windows lacks established standards for (almost) similar kinds of data, one needs to deal with different tools to deal with each piece of data.
A similar situation occurs also with file formats. Sometimes, the format of different versions of one and the same program varies so radically, that one is forced to deal with different interfaces for each version. That's also one of the reasons whyscripting tools didn't gain a wide acceptance in Windows.
Also one problem is that many programs on Windows base their interaction in a memory-to-memory basis, while *NIX still keeps a lot of its interchange in a filesystem basis.
So I am scheptic that M$ is able to do a serious move on this field. However I may understand why they are moving with a new scripting system. Frankly, with all the mess they created, perl and many other tools will never be able to have a fullscale use on Windows like in *NIX. But that depends on how far M$ will go on the development of this new system. If they will create some sort of Easy-VB-like scripting tool, it will not catch the souls of sysadmins. If they create a full-scale mutant like perl, they risk to give a new weapon for script-kiddies, but sysadmins will surely catch the wave.
First. Bush suxxx. Granted I am a leftist liberal, but that is not a crime of I'm out of the US...
Second. Don't push Mars to the table. Mars is a completely different system on its weather patterns, atmosphere parameters and distance to the Sun. It is unscientific and a little bit demagogic to call it up to Earth's table. On what concerns CO2 I my agree partially with you. Global warming is quite a silly stereotype people barely don't undersand. But it is a fact that the weather changed so wildly that it is time to think on how our human activity is affecting the climate.
Thirdly. Neither condoms or abstinence help avoiding unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted deseases. Sexual education does. Without it, people either ignore condoms or consider abstinence as a forbidden fruit that can be easily eaten at first opportunity. And this has nothing to do with leftist or conservative ideals. The problem of birth control and sexual deseases, together with condoms and abstinence has been here for centuries. And till now it is a plague in several parts of the world, no matter you call for condoms or abstinence.
You are partially wrong. While there is no doubt that average temperature has been going positive, there are several situations that lead to conclude that maximums and minimums have not been in place also. Right now, in central European Russia we are suffering the worst Winter since 50 years ago. For nearly all December we are getting an average -20 in several places. Right now, in some cities temperatures are beating the -40 limit. Last year we didn't have such a radical frost but it was largely colder than average. Note that for many regions in European Russia the average in December is -15 - -5, with episodical minimum limits of -20.
Summer floods have also presented an interesting pattern. Usually, a large section of East Europe gets hotter than +20 degrees (note all numbers are in centigrades). However, this last Summer has not only be too wet but also too cold. In Russia several regions beated the low records for Spring and early Summer. In our region, temperatures were frequently not higher than +15. And it was raining non-stop for several days. Meanwhile, in Siberia it was largely hotter than usual.There they entered Autumn with temperatures higher than +10 in many places.
Some other examples.
For some years I see snow falling in middle to late May, what is considered quite unusual for older generations.
In other situation, a highly traditional weather pattern seen here, suddenly broke for quite a long time. We are not too far from Moscow, so, it is usual to see Moscow's weather coming down here in two or three days. This year, either we had the same weather pattern as Moscow for several weeks, or we were generally colder than Moscow.
Meanwhile, while colder than usual, Moscow's green belt suffered one of its worst forest fires for many years. Due to the cold weather and these fires, for weeks Moscow was engolfed in a huge smog.
While I would not dispute the fact that the globe is getting hotter, I would advise to be careful on direct experiences. The weather is surely changing, but not in the stereotyped pattern that the partisans of global waring think.
Well I don't wanna point myself as a wonderchild but my earliest memory record is one of the Moon landings being shown on TV. Somehow this got fixed in my memory. As I recorded the room where this occured, later my father told me that this was the old home where we lived. We moved from that house when I was nearly on my two years. A little later I remember the night before my second birthday when a paper plant blowed up and my village was covered by a chlorine cloud. I remember my father holding me up, lots of shadows around, probably people and a terrible lack of air. Of course I didn't give a hint about what was going on. But later I discovered that my asthma crisis were due to that story.
In general I have a good picture of my childhood since my three years old.
It is curious to note that, among my brothers, the record varies a lot. My sister has also some good records of events that have happened before she was 4 years old. Another brother has some fantastic memory, bu he does not remember of things that happened before he was 5-6 years old. Another one carries some very fragmentary records of his life before he was 7-8 years, but one of them is surely before he was two.
As far as I know,based upon on my brother's and personal records, memory in the whole remains "alive" due to some critical, radical or traumatic circumstances. But it also can vanish. Till now I have a very fragmentary record of what have happened to me somewhere in the end of 1988. It was a very hard time and it was a terrible stress to me physically and psychologically. Frankly, I am sure that I have a whole month wiped out of my brain.
Among several of my friends, I have seen also wonderful things. One guy remembered his stay in the Red Sea when he was in his 4-5 years. Another one can't remember details of 5-6 years ago, bu he his terribly detailed on something that happened yesterday. Another can remember things to the very detail, as he recorded every important event as a picture.
Sincerly, I believe that the brain is a terrible wonder machine that still has lots of things to tell us.
Well, I have some very large experience on using several desktops. And I think I know enough about them to say that people will not change systems just for the desktop. While this thing is very important, the problem on using one or the other desktop is the range of services such system may offer and the way someone gets used to it.
During the middle of the 90's I saw lots of people that considered the Windows desktop as "horrible". But you would be admired to see that they used some highly primitive and simple apps made on DOS. Sysadmins linked all these apps with small batch files and highly primitive menus. And people were happy with it. When things started moving into Windows95, these people got lost. They couldn't get used to this new system for quite some long time. And most of them, till now, don't know what is the "Start" menu. They launch their programs from the icons laying in the desktop. And they don't give a Hell if the program is Internet Explorer or Mozilla if it carries the same interface (yeap I saw this funny thing some time ago). And not because it is better or worser but because it allows the same mechanical, routine movements without thinking about what's behind the GUI.
On *NIX, most of the choice around an interface is made on what you are offered at first. Most Mandrake people prefer KDE, Others give preference for Gnome. And, they rarely have seen they could have a choice. Due to the fact that they got used to these things, they rarely change sides. I, during my work on several interfaces in the very early ages of Linux, got used to the AfterStep interface. And I have noted that, today, I naturally prefer something like WindowMaker or BlackBox. This brings up an interesting effect. In two works, due to certain constraints, I use KDE or Gnome. And, for me it is pretty clear that 90% of these systems offer, are completely superfluous for me. But a mix of necessity and lazyness to change interfaces, keep me having them there.
Will people change to Linux because of the XP interface? No. They will change when you offer the same mechanics of using their machines everyday. And that means copying not only the interface per se, but also making all the horrors that people do with it and making every application look similar. When someone brings up that mess, people will change the OS. But not because it is Linux. Frankly, they will not note a difference.
Note. In certain cicumstances, it is possible today to offer systems carrying a range of services very similar to what Windows offer at start. I did that in 1999 with stations that were used only and exclusively for Internet browsing. When KDE is configured as much as possible as a Windows interface, a good mass of people do not give a hint about what OS they are working on. And this things was damn popular. While in Windows NT, these University classes had only 2500 users. When on Linux, there were no less than 7000. And just because the Linux was solid stable and fast... as the interfaces were nearly the same... And only after a talk or some weirdness on some program, people realised that they were not working on Windows.
However, I would not recomend to any sysadmin to see the horrors these people did with their desktops... Most of them looked as happy hippy vans...
Of course! Apart of security and privacy concerns, that was one of the things that several people noted right from start. As far as I remember, the first Hailstorm news on /. had several posters asking how M$ thought it could hold up millions of accounts, megatons of data and parseks of consumer demands without clogging and hampering certain things. Personally I thought, then, that we could seriously face a general stagnation on Internet, if M$ would manage to be implement it into another of its mega-embedded OS. Upon a critical point, M$ could not give anything more to its customers, no matter the resources it possesses. The only way to save things would be to restrict user's access and hamper development of new features. One do not need to be a Passport developper to understand these things. It is a very simple rule of economics: Your resources are always limited, and you cannot afford all your wishes. That applies to the simple consumer, organisation commercial or not, or a State.
The brightest example, which was pointed back in the early discussions, was USSR. They tried a lot to create an unique organism that afforded everything to everyone. No matter that the gigantic resources this country and its sattellites possessed, they failed. Why? Because they restricted all venues of alternative. They used every natural and working resource at their disposition but in the mean time payed the price by throwing all this into one objective - Communist Revolution. If they had lossen certain segments of their economies, probably they could have gone further. However, this would mean a slower pace and conflicts that they could not support under their monopolistic ideology. In the result, after a fast powerful startup, stagnation came up as the regime throwed more and more efforts on keeping things tight.
M$ faces the same fate as the USSR if it will keep trying to create such mastodons as Hailstorm. At first it will look great. Then, when the system grows in use and becomes saturated, it will be hard to change anything without breaking certain dependencies and create certain conflicts. Moreover, the resources will be mainly used to support the existing system, and little will remain to afford future expansions. As we humans have always a tendency to search the forbidden fruit, M$ would have huge problems. Either it should share it with someone else and break its monopolistic possession. Or it should try to keep people bound to the existing system, which means stagnation. Considering that Redmond's ideology is also very monopolistic, we may guess what would happen.
It's good that M$ may have thought twice before doing this mistake. Note that this was due to the fact that they could not afford even the primary objective of getting something working. However we all know that there are still people there who believe that M$ can do it all. So I believe that soon there will be some rumours out of Redmond about a second Hailstorm... in a cup of water....
... is that the PC market has not seen a Big, Bad and Ugly Game for years. PC market is very specific and sensible to certain specific games that demand a lot more than one can afford. Remember Doom? Remember the Quake series? Back when they came up, no console could ever hold up such beasts. And most PCs were quickly upgraded to fit the current game. The PC market highly depends on such bleeding edge games to live. Besides, these are games that frequently give birth to tweaks, features, hacks and lots of art. Doom is unbeatable till now by the number of ports, maps and features. Quake was the base for several popular games like Half-life series. Quake2 nearly reached the feat of becoming a basis for virtual worlds. Unfortunately, the market went down on Quake3 and Wolfenstein... They were not so breathtaking like their predecessors.
The only way to see the PC market reviving is to see another tide like those seen on Doom and Quake2 times. Something that is so wild and bleeding-edge, that people will forget for months what a console is, and return to frenzy upgrades and hacks. Frankly I have doubt that Doom3 would fit on such thing. But who knows?..
Today we commemorate the 100 years since /. editors managed to successfully demonstrate that quantum leaps also occur in the macroworld...
Anyone who see how sme articles are written, knows perfectly that "bibliography" is usually created as a "necessary evil". Most scientific articles are done basically in the light of several "obligatory templates": abstraction, main article, citations, bibliography and notes. Frequently, real authors are not the ones you see first in the header of the article but someone in the end of it. Also, sometimes, certain people do the most flagrant plagiates out of the work of their students or co-workers.
What I call "academical science" is full of huge problems, which sometimes reach the level of flagrant falsifications and demagogic manipulation of facts. While not being a scientist per se, I have seen how these things pass the limits ethics and moral in such a thing like Mars. There is one scientist who tragically died in a very strange situation. Apart of the conditions of the tragedy, there was one big "authority" on Mars who lied with all his teeth about the work of his deceased colleague. Frankly, it was shocking to see how this guy flagrantly and demagogically "reinterpreted" the intentions of the scientific work of his colleague. One should note that both guys were highly considered in the community. However, they were adversaries. One died, the other became a big scientific authority on Mars. One of the reasons, was that he made a lot to desmise the works that went against his theories
I have confidence that we are not that stupid.
I wished to be so optimist like you... Unfortunately, while I have not seen anyone putting critical systems directly accessible through the Internet, there are enough "backdoor" channels to see very important things linked to Internet. Or corporate network so badly installed and maintained, that a small link to Internet will be enough to give huge problems to many people.
Well, on /. we frequently see some trolls that consider themselves so smart and experienced to say some enormities. And, I'm already seeing some saying the usual: "And so what? That's just another /. newsfud". Please, while /. is well fudded, there are things you should keep the mouth shut and think a little before saying something.
The submission shown here may look, partially innocent for house wifes and the common guy in the street. They have lived with so many hacks, virus and trojans, that there is not much to worry about that. Unfortunately, many people do not know that such silly big providers also support someone who is not so simple and humble like your personal computer. They may be segments of corporate networks, departments that are too remotely located, that it is far cheaper to link them to some provider, rather than spending money to create an isolated channel. You may understand this, and still think that the biggest problem for the majority is the fact that information can be stolen. Correct rationale, if we consider the "majority", but again, bullshit. The big problem can be one or two clients of this provider. Clients that, if something goes wrong there, no one of us may have time even to say "shit". And no one will care to put you in a shinny wooded coffin. The best you may expect is a few tons of concrete and a mixture of chemicals so that your body quickly decomposes... Or that your body is quickly turned into ashes...
The problem between big providers and such clients, is that, being a provider with reputation, dimension and emphasis, clients tend to forget some simple rules of the trade. They think that this huge provider does his homework and maintains a minimal level of protection. Meanwhile, these same clients, do not only forget to check the security of such links, but also forget about isolating such channels from their own critical sectors of activity. In the result, a malicious hacker may break-in in minutes into some critical zone. This may be a control station of some distribution system, an industrial zone, or the control room of the corporate network.
Such situations happen and happen too frequently to consider it mere incidents. Thankfully, many of these break-ins are made by people who still have the shoulders in their head. Thankfully, breaking into the majority of corporate networks still demands some art and skills. However, this situation may change, if we all start considering that such problems, like the one described on the submission, are mere "features" that one may live with. If you consider that it should be that way, then don't be admired to see some big factory dropping tons of shit into the air or water. Don't be admired that suddenly a whole communication network goes fool and even 911 doesn't work in the middle of some critical situation. Don't be admired that your company produces things that blast or short-circuit at first use. Don't be admired that the lights go off every 5 minutes and all your home electronics are burning out. These are not stories taken from the hat. These are very concrete scenarios of real holes found somewhere around.
These things do not happen now so frequently because Internet is in its very early age (and still many people, like engineers, do not trust it). But some of these holes are already there, waiting right around the corner for the first maniac script kiddie (yes, there are already holes that such lamers may exploit). If we keep this mood, of not caring about security, we will have all guarantees that something will seriously go wrong in the future.
I expect the next missions to the moon to be robotic.
Most of us have been expecting that since the middle of the 70's. However, with exception of 2-3 missions, we have not seen even coke cans being sent there. Frankly the problem is not how difficult is to send something or someone to the Moon. The problem is that 99% of the people only do care about Space when they check the day's prognosis for their sign... Probably, only when some astrologer will say that, sitting in the Moon, will make better predictions, we will see millions storming parliaments and congresses, demanding funds to set a ziggurath in the Moon.
I don't really get. Some of us here are either too pessimistic or too ultimative. And don't see the real mean of this news. And the news is: for years we haven't seen any major OS development. However, there are a few people who still break the ice. That's bad news with some light for hope.
For these last years we hanged over a few systems, majorly divided on three architectures: Windows/OS/2, *NIX, Apple/Mac. We had or have also such things like Amiga or Netware. However, we are trending into a world where we may get some weird mix Windows/*NIX. Frankly, in the bottom line, that's not bad. It's horrible. If you take into account the ideas, ideologies and theories about operating systems, which blossomed during the 70's and 80's, the Windows and *NIX architectures are pure crap. They were systems that look much like a temporary agreement between old and new theories. However, due to the fact that they became very popular, they seem to look tip-top for everyone. Unfortunately this popularity went so far that deeply froze the development of new systems.
Well, to some of us, it may look that we don't need any other systems and we should keep happy using and developing the present ones.Wrong. That's the same kind of behaviour one gets in a totalitarian regime: you're happy because you haven't seen through the Iron Courtain. This blindness can be dangerous as we may get very deep inside the crap. And when we realize that we need something else, it will be very difficult to do it, as we no longer have the experts, the theoretics, the engineers and developers capable of working from the zero line. BTW, this thing is already seen on many fields. If we do not support a stable path of development for such things, even if, presently, they would not be so bright and shiny like Windows or Linux, we surely will loose the capacity to have real choices in the future.
However, this MorphOS thing worries me on some details. The most is that, at their site, they not quite generous on giving information.
Did I hear things or is everybody ignoring some recent news about ISS? A few days ago I heard that USA and Russia had agreed to grow ISS's crew some people more by 2004 or 2006. Sincerly, I didn't take serious attention as I was running out to work and saw just a glimpse of some meeting showing on TV. Did anyone here saw this thing?
And how can this fit with this news?
On what concerns the objective of ISS... Well it was and it is a turkey... One of you guys pointed correctly. While politicians (both sides!) played Space Station to keep people happy, Science and all the rest went through the pipe.
The BOfH seats at his desk... Calmly plays another party of Quake... Someone rings the door bell.
Who's there? - says the BOfH with some irritation that someone messed with his chance to break his 1374th frag record.
Oh, this is department XXX. You have a problem, the network doesn't work.
Couldn't you say that by the phone?..
Oh, well. We could but it was busy and we thought it was a lot easier to talk to you directly...
Well, come in... - The BOfH presses the button and the door opens...
Ooops sorry what is this funny small dark room here?
Oh, well. That's a small hall to avoid noises and dust coming up here. We have some sensitive equipement here... Just close the outdoor so I can open the inner door...
Oh, cool. Yeah, you amy be right, you have quite a dusty corridor just outside, you kn.. BAHM! FRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
A bunch of dust flows over the corridor, the BOfH calmly concludes: "No person, no problem... back to the game..."
As many people noted here, this thing is more about economics and the use of present technologies. While not being an expert on this field, I cannot believe that we are reaching the real physical limit of computing. For a simple reason... There is still a machine that is much more powerful than the fastest chip around the market. Yes, we have already see machines that can vastly outperform it. But they can't do it only in very specific tasks. And, besides, they can't do it without the help of that same machine. Anyway, the density of this machine is still much higher than the equivalent dimension in modern waffles.
Sincerly, I think we still will take some good years even to approach the capacity that hides behind the eyes that sees this text. But does this means that we have no other alternatives? Well, present chips work mainly on electron interchanges, and we still have light as an unexplored field.
And to those who say OS/2 was good, remember that this is where LanMan was born. We are still paying the price for this with ANY MSFT based lan, weak encryption, NetBIOS exploits, etc.
Back when Windows 3.11 was still alive, lots of people warned Microsoft that NetBIOS was NEVER intended to get out of the small LAN. However M$ did a lot, not only to expand it over bridges and routers, but also ported the damn thing over IP. While I am not a programmer no longer, in those times I DID program, and I programmed some interesting things with NetBIOS, sometimes at very raw level. Every person who saw the specs, documents and the thing itself KNEW that NetBIOS was a simple protocol for small networks and majorly supposed to work on TokenRing, where packet transfer is more controlled than Ethernet. For major networks people were supposed to use X.25 and similar stuff. While there were serious internal weaknesses on NetBIOS protocol, the major problem came when M$ just spread it just as any other protocol. So better thank M$ for caring for its customers.
All of the sudden, Microsoft refuses to license code to IBM, and the operating system dies.
What do you mean by this? Frankly, OS/2 didn't die on M$s eyes for this. Yes they trowed out the towell back in 1987. Punched the child in 1992. And cut the youngsters throat somewhere near 1995. However note that for quite some time, Windows was well known as the OS/2-"Frankenstein", as its code was vastly based on it. Frankly the story of the death of OS/2 is a little more complex than this. It started with the fact that IBM choose to throw away the PC architecture and its clones overborad. And waited that, sooner or later, the makority would be happily playing PS/2+OS/2+... Then it was the several "treasons" Microsoft did while being a member of OS/2 team. Third it was the fact that support and maintenance was initially bad as this system was firstly oriented as a support system for a bigger ine of systems. And fourth, when IBM did see the mistake, it was too late to recover. The market was already oriented through Wintel and it didn't make any signs of taking seriously the efforts IBM did to recover its system. When they did came with OS/2 v.3, the market was already in shambles, due to M$ predatory policies, and barely could afford any risk to support IBM.
Well there can be other factors. But sincerly, the History of OS/2 is too complex to just point one finger to someone. However, M$ did play one of the most negative roles here. Being one of the creators, their behaviour through their partner was far from beautiful. And even if we knew IBM as the Evil Empire, M$ just played here like a Jedi of the worst taste.
My congratulations to both of them and hope that /. and you will still be here to speak about grandsons and all the interesting things that ocurred since a few students decided to play news for nerds and stuff that matters.
You just don't take the point. We are talking here about corrots and apples. Your ideas and considerations are purely based on the fact that you ignore the fact that code is all equal for machines. You make such remarkable distinctions between languages but forget that the machine, doesn't give a Hell if you write in C or Java. C, Java and most languages are not insecure by themselves. There is nothing in C to make you automatically fall into buffer overflows. It is the way the machine processes the code and data that creates it.
.NET, the code would be quite full-proof. Correct. But does anyone think that 99% of developers would be able to do that? Without an HOWTO-MAKE-SECURE-.NET-APPS-FOR-REAL-DUMMIES we will see sure trouble arounf here. Besides, even if that HOWTO existed, 90% of the people would not give a dman about it.
.NET and its interaction with the most raw of all things - the binary code.
And remember. C is just human macro-assembler. You can make even more pretty buffer overflows in Assembler or machine code.
Your opinion for the irrelevance of the real machine is not perfectly correct. First note the overblow of putting a virtual machine over the real one. Second, the insecurity of the real machine remains at the same level. The problem of security in Java is that is quite difficult to go all the way down to explore something in the border between JVM and the host machine.
The use of JNI does weak Java security. Frankly this could rise serious problems in the future. But comparing it to C is something I wouldn't risk to do. C code, done the right way, can be a lot more secure than any Java code. I have seen such pieces of code. Gigantic marvels where speed is combined to nearly military security. However it costs a lot more to create such code than using Java. Choosing each of the ways depends highly on the priorities, guarantees and needs you have for the code. Claiming that one piece of code is far better than other, here, is very difficult.
Here one may ask. But if one combines real ironmade C with
And, once again, if you read me well you may see that I don't give a Hell to C libraries.The problem is on the freedom to code
First, keep the ranting for yourself. Second, do keep C out of the story as I didn't brought it up and you don't make pretty faces playing with my words. And third, check up how can a network system dealing with the most raw code of modern architectures, claim that can be secure and even claim that it can, at the same time, manage that security. For this I highly recomend you to study a little bit about processors. And then you may see that C, Basic, Java or even .NET have nothing to do with the main reason for buffer overflows. The problem lays right over the hardware. Giving it a chance to play overflows, is enough to give any potential trouble even to the most secured environment.
BTW. That's why that in some military environments, Intel-alike machines are strictly verbotten.
But why do we need to spread the monstrosity is beyond me.
Surely you are not aware of the intentions of the "Ultimate Evil", that deep Artificial Soul of the early Era of Computing, that seeks to spread a computer over every house and turn the dimensions of every PC into ENIAC proportions.
If /. had stated:
... I believe that BG would be calling now a major pow-wow in Redmond.
But if Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest owner of Linux software
As I told to one other guy here, the problem of buffer overruns is not withing the language only but also with the damn system you work with. AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH .NET! And you nearly note that thing:
.NET (excepting unmanged code) eliminate the posibility of that class of error, making them far more suitable from that point of view.
.NET is completely weak. In certain architectures, you cannot avoid completely the chance for buffer overruns. Even Java, on an Intel machine, carries always the potential for such trouble. Even a Linux kernel, carrying special code to control buffer overruns cannot guarantee an 100% security (probably 99,9999 but never 100%).
.NET that, still allows you to contact some piece of trash like C can be considered secure? That reminds me of some supersecured building, cameras and signalisation everywhere, which some director broke by entering through the backdoor.
Environments like Java, Python and
Exactly, that's what
Now can you tell me that a supersecured environment like
And before talking about "foggiest clues", go learn something about how programming languages are seen by the computer. I highly recomend you someone like Donald Knuth...
And besides people. Keep C out of this discussion. C is not to be blamed for all the problems. C just gives instructions to the processor. If the processor cannot give a shit of a difference between code and data, that's a question to be asked to those who created it. Probably they will say it was a lot cheaper and effective to do it that way. And maybe they were right. However, every piece of code/data, entering the damn processor, has always the chance to put that guy nuts. And C here has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Impossible pal. The problem of buffer overflows is related not only to the programming language itself but also the the architecture you run the programs on. Intel, AMDs and alikes are prone to buffer overflows because they do not make strict distinctions between code and data. While one works in such architectures, the potential of exploits is always above zero.
.NET is more deeply integrated to other systems and environments than Java. At least I don't see those same strict barriers that would block java application environments, from using C/C++ library functions or vice-versa. In any case, the .NET infrastructure is much more loosy in this. Now C is simply and generally assembler for humans. In fact, it is the bottom line of the architecture you work with. C++ is just a more complex frame, but is is not so far from C. Saying that there is nothing dangerous in this interaction, is not only stupid but irresponsible.
C#, like Java, may not be so prone to buffer overruns while they remain in a certain virtual architecture that avoids many of the weaknesses of the real processors. However,