"Fix your OpenSSH client for upcoming client advisory: CVE-2016-0777" has been merged into this story.
Quote of the day in the email: “C is a terrible language, please stop writing code in it.” g
Quote of the day in the email: “C is a terrible language, please stop writing code in it.” g
I hate it when people say stuff like this. C is a fine language. Learn how to write better code.
“Just do better” is not helping us avoid security flaws.
I don’t disagree, but it’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools.
I dislike this statement in relation to programming languages. Programming is complicated. Solving the problem at hand should be the focus; a tool that can eliminate secondary problems is a strict improvement in many cases. Think about modern cars, for example, that have anti-lock brakes and traction control. Sure, you could drive a 1968 car, but by driving a modern one, many concerns secondary to getting there are removed.
No doubt. But saying “C is a terrible language” is like saying “excavators don’t have anti-lock brakes, stop using them.”
C has use cases for which it is still the best language, and still has the advantage of being a small enough language that a programmer can keep the whole thing in their head at once (compare modern C++ or Rust, which are just enormous by comparison).
(I love C, if you couldn’t tell.)
No doubt there are domains where C is still king… but I think they are more limited than most think, and that’s the point, I believe, of the somewhat “pointed” statement: stop using C where there are better alternatives.