RE: Education and security -- another perspective (was "ACM Queue - Content")

["Wall, Kevin" <Kevin.Wall () qwest com>]

David Crocker wrote...

> There is a tendency to regard every programming problem as an
> O-O problem.  Sometime last year I read a thread on some
> programming newsgroup in which contributors argued about the
> correct way to write a truly O-O "Hello world" program. All
> the solutions provided were cumbersome compared to the traditional
> "printf("Hello, world!")" solution. The point is, printing
> "Hello, world!" is not an O-O problem!

Amen to that! I made similar remarks in the 'comp.compiler' and
'comp.object' USENET newsgroups as far back as 1991 (see for
example [URL probably will wrap] ...
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=active&threadm=91-08-148%40comp.compilers&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dcblph!kww%2Bgroup:comp.*%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%26ie%3DUTF-8%26newwindow%3D1%26safe%3Dactive%26selm%3D91-08-148%2540comp.compilers%26rnum%3D1)

I also muttered similar things within the Bell Labs community
much earlier than that during a time that C++ was first gaining momentum.

I'm of the belief that one should use the appropriate programming paradigm
that best fits the problem at hand. Contrary to how some may feel, I
strongly believe that does NOT mean that the best solution is always
an OO approach. Unfortunately, when all you have is a hammer...
[Note: In general, I'm a fan of OO--where and when appropriate.]

But this is getting way-off topic, so I'll cease my ranting.
(About time he shuts up! ;-)
-kevin
---
Kevin W. Wall           Qwest Information Technology, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]       Phone: 614.215.4788
"The reason you have people breaking into your software all 
over the place is because your software sucks..."
 -- Former whitehouse cybersecurity advisor, Richard Clarke,
    at eWeek Security Summit