> From: Russell Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: 30 Mar 1999 16:15:20 -0000
>
> Russ Allbery writes:
> > Russell Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > > Sorry, Russ, this *is* a Microsoft problem. When many people make the
> > > same mistake, it is a failure of technology, not a failure of people.
> >
> > !!
> >
> > That's a vicious condemnation of the entire software industry. No
> > exceptions.
>
> Nahhhh. I call it the Full Employment Principle for Computer
> Programmers. :) It just *happens* in this case to condemn Microsoft's
> macro viruses. It can be used to condemn many other mistakes. For
> example, I should be able to say (as root) ``rm -rf /'', and then say
> "oops. undo." (as long as there was sufficient free space prior to
> that to avoid ongoing filesystem activity from writing over any
> just-removed files -- and even if there wasn't, the first files
> overwritten were the least-recently accessed files). And yeah, this
> can all be done in user space.
As one of the contributors to "The UNIX-HATERS Handbook", I can assure you
that it really is a vicious condemnation of the entire software industry (or
at least a *very* large part of it), but the industry needs quite a bit of
condemnation.
Software could be so much better than it is, but the fact that it isn't better
doesn't excuse the companies/programers who made it the way it is.
The sad thing is that 10 years ago we* were raving about how bad Unix
is...today we're raving about how much worse Microsoft is than Unix. This
isn't because Unix got any better.
Chris
* For some poorly defined "we" which certainly includes me and which may
or may not include you.
--
Chris Garrigues Deep Eddy Internet Consulting
+1 512 432 4046 609 Deep Eddy Avenue O-
http://www.DeepEddy.Com/~cwg/ Austin, TX 78703-4513
My email address is an experiment in SPAM elimination. For an
explanation of what we're doing, see http://www.DeepEddy.Com/tms.html
Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft,
but they could get fired for relying on Microsoft.
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