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I'm reminded of hand-washing in medicine. Even after it became indisputable that hand-washing improved patient outcomes, doctors didn't want to do it: they felt

I'm reminded of hand-washing in medicine. Even after it became indisputable that hand-washing improved patient outcomes, doctors didn't want to do it: they felt insulted by the implication that their hands weren't already clean. The truth is a doctor could be the most hygienic person in the world and still walk into a surgery with germ-coated hands. A hand-washing requirement isn't a personal insult: it's just a reflection of reality. But pride gets in the way. Likewise, even if you're the best programmer in the world, if you write a large C program, sooner or later, you're going to introduce a security vulnerability. Switching to a safe language isn't an admission of some personal inadequacy: it just reflects how the world works. But pride gets in the way.

coretx 7y ago
People should also not forget that the C culture comes from a age when the philosophy of letting your executable be as simple as possible, do only one thing and do it perfectly & interoperable was so prevalent it did not need discussion. It's a much different ecosystem compared to today; thousands of abstractions, tons of includes, unknown functions etc. In one environment it's "ok" to make "a" mistake, in another it ain't.