[TUHS] more about Brian...
Dan Halbert
halbert at halwitz.org
Sun Feb 6 14:58:40 AEST 2022
Thank you, Rob. I composed a similar reply, and debated whether to
send it. You hit all the right points more succinctly and directly. --Dan H.
On 2/5/22 23:52, Rob Pike wrote:
> Be careful with your castigations. Yes, there is lots of old working
> code, but keep in mind that that code has often not been as widely
> tested and deployed as much of the software that runs today. The fact
> that it worked well on old hardware doesn't mean it will be suitable
> for modern networked remotely administered multicore machines pounded
> on by millions of people.
>
> And speaking of multicore, it's possible to write code using
> malloc/free that doesn't leak when run concurrently, but it's a lot
> easier, safer, and robust to let the machine do the memory accounting.
> And the fact that "kids today" can't do it doesn't mean they are lazy
> or failures, it means they grew up in a different time. And a lot of
> them are as capable as you all, just in a different environment.
>
> Lately this list has a lot of attitude and prejudice pretending to be
> wisdom and superiority.
>
> -rob
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 6, 2022 at 12:11 PM Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/5/22 6:56 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 04, 2022 at 09:28:10PM +0100, Hellwig Geisse wrote:
>>> Hi Thomas,
>>>
>>> On Fr, 2022-02-04 at 20:45 +0100, Thomas Paulsen wrote:
>>>> I tell you one thing: I never ever experienced any problems with
>>>> traditional malloc()/free().??
>>> did you ever write a program which does heavy malloc()/free()
>>> on complicated (i.e., shared) data structures *and* runs for
>>> days, perhaps weeks? IMO it's very difficult to do this without
>>> a GC, and you have to exercise quite an amount of discipline
>>> to do it right.
>> I've done this and I've employed people who have done this. We're
>> a dieing breed, the focus seems to be on programming languages and
>> tools for idiots. People don't want to learn the discipline it takes
>> to work with malloc()/free(). It's sad.
>
> I completely agree. This is ridiculous. Do modern programmer's
> seriously think that the old code wasn't complex or robust?
> Sheesh, there's code out there that has run through more millions
> of transactions an hour for more years than most of these folks
> have been alive. There's also code that's been running without any
> updates, for decades. Most code written by the newbreed won't run
> for a month without surfacing dozens of bugs. Margaret Hamilton
> would prolly have some choice words for these folks.
>
>
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