Re: Thoughts on Shellshock and beyond

["David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler () dwheeler com>]

On Wed, 8 Oct 2014 14:53:44 -0700, Tracy Reed <treed () ultraviolet org> wrote:
> While it is too late for our hardware etc. perhaps strong type systems such as
> found in Haskell can help here?

No.  At least not in the sense of totally separating data and code.
It's trivial to implement a language (say Lisp) inside Haskell,
and then hand data to that implementation to be executed.

That does not make Haskell *bad*; you can implement an interpreter
in any Turing-complete language.  And it's absurd to say "NEVER
mix data and code" - it's sometimes the right approach to use.
But mixing code with data is probably an *overused* approach,
given the risks that come with it.

We need to help developers know what is safe, and what is less safe.
Then they can avoid easily-avoided problems, and know when they have
extra work to do.

--- David A. Wheeler