Re: OT: Language Design
- Posted by Nickofurr at aol.com
May 28, 2004
-------------------------------1085777654
In a message dated 5/27/2004 9:27:49 PM Eastern Standard Time,
guest at RapidEuphoria.com writes:
"There is one thing more important than brevity to a hacker: being able
to do what you want. In the history of programming languages a
surprising amount of effort has gone into preventing programmers from
doing things considered to be improper. This is a dangerously
presumptuous plan. How can the language designer know what the
programmer is going to need to do? I think language designers would do
better to consider their target user to be a genius who will need to do
things they never anticipated, rather than a bumbler who needs to be
protected from himself. The bumbler will shoot himself in the foot
anyway. You may save him from referring to variables in another package,
but you can't save him from writing a badly designed program to solve
the wrong problem, and taking forever to do it."
http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html
You know, he is absolutely right. However, not all hackers are bad. I used
to be one myself, to tell you the truth. Hackers invented the Internet.
Actually, if you think about it, We shouldn't be worried about Hackers.
Crackers
are who we need to worry about.
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<DIV>In a message dated 5/27/2004 9:27:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, guest at
RapidEuphoria.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px
solid"><FONT face=Arial>"There is one thing more important than brevity to a
hacker: being able<BR>to do what you want. In the history of programming
languages a<BR>surprising amount of effort has gone into preventing programmers
from<BR>doing things considered to be improper. This is a
dangerously<BR>presumptuous plan. How can the language designer know what
the<BR>programmer is going to need to do? I think language designers would
do<BR>better to consider their target user to be a genius who will need to
do<BR>things they never anticipated, rather than a bumbler who needs to
be<BR>protected from himself. The bumbler will shoot himself in the
foot<BR>anyway. You may save him from referring to variables in another
package,<BR>but you can't save him from writing a badly designed program to
solve<BR>the wrong problem, and taking forever to do
it."<BR><BR>http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ff8040" face="Times New Roman"
color=#ffff00>You know, he is absolutely right. However, not all hackers
are bad. I used to be one myself, to tell you the truth. Hackers
invented the Internet. Actually, if you think about it, We shouldn't be
worried about Hackers. Crackers are who we need to worry
about.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
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