[Cryptography] It's all K&R's fault

[ianG]

On 19/04/2014 02:45 am, Peter Gutmann wrote:
> Jerry Leichter <leichter at lrw.com> writes:
> 
>> What's important isn't the language as such, and it's been proven over and
>> over again that it's possible to write unsafe code in any language.  
> 
> This was first stated (in variant form) by Ed Post in "Real Programmers Don't
> Use PASCAL":
> 
>   The determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language



How many people here were trained early 1990s and before?  In those
days, quality programming was the standard, no question.

Then the dotcom boom happened and time-to-ship became the standard.  No
question.  (although skeptics will say that M$ showed the way...)

Everything changed.  Everything in programming now is about how to get
half-way decent, half-way survivable code out the door, with people who
aren't up to the standards of the old days.

It's an economics and numbers thing, supply and demand.  When the
industry expands faster than the universities can supply grads, then
other sources are tapped.  The overall body of programmers changes.

That's why we don't recommend C or C++ or Perl or PHP.  Too easy for the
real programmer, too easy when the masses get stuck in.

(As Peter said.  In less words.)



iang