[Cryptography] [FORGED] Re: How programming language design can help us write secure crypto code

[Ray Dillinger]

I think that the possibility of pointers being null
is not wrong.  *WILD* pointers, at storage that has
been deallocated or, worse, reallocated for something
else, are an abomination, but null pointers are a
simple and useful thing.

To me a null pointer is a semantically valid entity
meaning "value not yet determined" or "no such value
is possible" or "the structure had no data matching
the criteria you searched for," etc.  If you didn't
use null for that, you'd still need a way to express
it.

I mean, sure, they could be better.  If I were to
attempt a type-safe language then each type, including
but not limited to pointer types, would have its own
*distinct* null to indicate "no valid value," and
dereferencing a null pointer would have a defined,
non-crashing semantics as returning the null value
of the associated type - but that wouldn't change how
I use them.  It would just mean I needed to type a
bit less.

I simply don't understand all the rage and gnashing
of teeth directed at them.

				Bear


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