[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Paul.Raulerson wrote:
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: info-vax-bounces at rbnsn.com [mailto:info-vax-bounces at rbnsn.com] On
>> Behalf Of John Santos
>> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 8:43 PM
>> To: info-vax at rbnsn.com
>> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] Whither VMS?
>>
>> In article <paul.nospam-4799A6.21263308102009 at pbook.sture.ch>,
>> paul.nospam at sture.ch says...>
>>> In article <7ivb7rF32o3n0U1 at mid.individual.net>,
>>>  billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <gKBLIl0YcnM+ at eisner.encompasserve.org>,
>>>> 	koehler at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes:
>>>>> In article <7ire14F32vm9nU2 at mid.individual.net>,
>> billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill
>>>>> Gunshannon) writes:
>>>>>> And once again we blame the language for the incompetence (or
>> just plain
>>>>>> laziness) of the programmers.
>>>>>    That's like blaiming the carpenter who loses his hand to a
>> circular
>>>>>    saw without a blade guard.  The saw should have had the blade
>> guard.
>>>> The saw wasn't made without a blade guard (at least none I ever
>> used was).
>>>> It is still the fault of the operator for using it improperly.
>>>>
>>>> When C is used properly it works just fine and doesn't have any
>> more
>>>> security problems than any other language. I have never written a
>>>> program that was exploited thru a buffer overflow.
>>>>
>>> Going back to my student holiday job days there were employers who
>> would
>>> disable safety guards to enhance productivity.
>>>
>>> And employees on piece rate pay who would disable safety guards
>>> themselves.
>> Ever see the movie about Johnny Cash, and what happened to his brother?
>>
>> There seem to have been no safety guards to be removed.  Just like C.
>>
>> --
>> John Santos
>> Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc.
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> 
> Lordy- isn't this a bit of a stretch?  Safety guards on saws vs. coding in
> C. 
> Huh. To tell the truth, I would far rather have the safety monitoring on a
> device
> written in C by a careful programmer than in Java by a careless one
> depending upon
> the compiler to "get it right." 
> 
> I do use the compiler to find mistakes, but it has little to do with
> ensuring the program
> is written and operates correctly.  Indeed, the compiler has pretty much
> nothing to do 
> with that! 
> 

The compiler is pretty good at spotting syntax errors.  Logical errors 
or multiplying when you should have added are not something a compiler 
can recognize as an error.

Testing must find the logical errors.