Re: [Lit.] Buffer overruns

From: karl malbrain (karl_m_at_acm.org)
Date: 12/21/04 

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 11:00:14 -0800

"Xcott Craver" <caj@B-r-a-i-n-H-z.com> wrote in message
news:AzRxd.81853$AL5.65303@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
> Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> wrote:
> >
> >Sure. Certain drugs, for example, in the hands of doctors
> >are fine but in the hands of laymen could be deadly.
>
> Exactly; and one of the big problems with computer programmers
> is that they tend to analogize themselves to highly skilled
> professionals, like surgeons.
>
> Programmers need to get over themselves, and understand that they
> are less like doctors, and more like uncertified laypeople trying
> to practice medicine with a pre-med degree and a sharp scalpel.
> My security and safety depends on whether programmers are too
> macho to adopt security and safety measures, on the grounds that
> "real programmers" don't need them.
>
> I am also annoyed by programmers analogizing themselves to
artists--
> apparently programming is an "art" just because it has an aesthetic
> component--but that's another peeve entirely.

Programming is a CRAFT

>From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Craft \Craft\ (kr[.a]ft), n. [AS. cr[ae]ft strength, skill, art, cunning;
akin to OS., G., Sw., & Dan. kraft strength, D. kracht, Icel. kraptr; perh.
originally, a drawing together, stretching, from the root of E. cramp.]

1. Strength; might; secret power. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
2. Art or skill; dexterity in particular manual employment; hence, the
occupation or employment itself; manual art; a trade.

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