From owner-freebsd-chat Thu May 13 10:47:34 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mail-gw1adm.rcsntx.swbell.net (mail-gw1.rcsntx.swbell.net [151.164.30.51]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 726271532A for ; Thu, 13 May 1999 10:47:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from chris@holly.dyndns.org) Received: from holly.dyndns.org (ppp-207-193-14-155.hstntx.swbell.net [207.193.14.155]) by mail-gw1adm.rcsntx.swbell.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA12627; Thu, 13 May 1999 12:47:15 -0500 (CDT) Received: (from chris@localhost) by holly.dyndns.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id MAA20046; Thu, 13 May 1999 12:48:44 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from chris) Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 12:48:42 -0500 From: Chris Costello To: Brett Glass Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BSD, GPL, the world today. (fwd) Message-ID: <19990513124842.A19831@holly.dyndns.org> Reply-To: chris@calldei.com References: <4.2.0.37.19990513102444.04697e40@localhost> <4.2.0.37.19990513095524.04429440@localhost> <19990513112210.A19394@holly.dyndns.org> <4.2.0.37.19990513102444.04697e40@localhost> <19990513113714.B19394@holly.dyndns.org> <4.2.0.37.19990513105719.04696100@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Mutt/0.96.2i In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.37.19990513105719.04696100@localhost>; from Brett Glass on Thu, May 13, 1999 at 11:31:38AM -0600 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, May 13, 1999, Brett Glass wrote: > At 11:37 AM 5/13/99 -0500, Chris Costello wrote: > > >Also, integers should be only 4 bits, and bytes should only be > >2 bits long. > > Nothing personal, but the sentence above reflects a fear of safeguards > that almost amounts to paranoia. It seems to have been instilled in > many programmers that the ability to engage in well-known unsafe > practices -- even if there are better and safer ways to do the > same things -- is essential to being able to program at all. Making > programming tools safe does not unduly limit them. I'm rarely paranoid, that was sarcasm. :) > What's really scary, though, is that some carpenters I've seen are > foolish enough to remove the partial, retractable blade guard that > DOES come with the circular saw. Or to jam the safety latch on the > power switch open. Moronic practices by the human "component" doesn't make the product any less good. I can use Unix to screw up my disk drives, does that mean Unix is a bad thing? > These are usually the ones who are short a finger or two. > > --Brett -- Chris Costello Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message