Being safe on the internet (was Re: Here we go again - ISP DPI, but is it interception?)
Ian Batten
igb at batten.eu.org
Mon Aug 9 19:35:35 BST 2010
> Of course you can write secure stuff I any language - it's just that
> it's extremely difficult in things like C++ and others of that ilk
> (and you have to avoid use of some of its features)
And, by extension, you can write FORTRAN in anything, although I was
impressed by this: http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039535
If there's anyone alive that hasn't read the original "real
programmers" article, which opens
> The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the
> programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use Fortran.
> Quiche Eaters use Pascal. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of Pascal,
> gave a talk once at which he was asked, "How do you pronounce your
> name?". He replied, "You can either call me by name, pronouncing it
> 'Veert', or call me by value, 'Worth'." One can tell immediately by
> this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater. The only
> parameter passing mechanism endorsed by Real Programmers is call-by-
> value-return, as implemented in the IBM/370 Fortran G and H
> compilers. Real Programmers don't need all these abstract concepts
> to get their jobs done-- they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a
> Fortran IV compiler, and a beer.
it's currently available at http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html
Although I notice one irony, after our friends in the US lost a probe
through confusing imperial and metric units (and one is reminded of
Benneton F1, who when they had US-designed Ford engines opted to
replace all the external fasteners with custom-made ones with imperial
threads and metric heads, so as to only need one set of spanners for
fly-aways).
> The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity
> assist trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory
> passes within 80 +/- 3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is
> going to trust a Pascal program (or Pascal programmer) for
> navigation to these tolerances.
>
How did that work out later?
ian
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