4 ms·

And the argument against your points usually makes no sense! Sure "performance". But these "features" should at the very least be on-by-default, with an opt-out

by bjoli 5y ago

And the argument against your points usually makes no sense! Sure "performance". But these "features" should at the very least be on-by-default, with an opt-out for people who want to be able to shoot themselves in the foot.

pjmlp 5y ago
Not even sure "performance" is valid. Unisys keeps selling Burroughs as ClearPath MCP, not only because of legacy mainframes, rather it is an originally written platform in 1961 with system programming languages (ESPOL/NEWP) that take security seriously (the first set of languages with unsafe code blocks and instrisics instead of Assembly), so there are still customers around that are willing to pay for that extra security. https://www.unisys.com/offerings/clearpath-forward/clearpath-forward-products/clearpath-mcp-software https://www.unisys.com/offerings/clearpath-forward/clearpath... And then there is the whole experience from ALGOL compilers in production, "Many years later we asked our customers whether they wished us to provide an option to switch off these checks in the interests of efficiency on production runs. Unanimously, they urged us not to--they already knew how frequently subscript errors occur on production runs where failure to detect them could be disastrous. I note with fear and horror that even in 1980, language designers and users have not learned this lesson. In any respectable branch of engineering, failure to observe such elementary precautions would have long been against the law." -- C.A.R Hoare on his Turing award speech in 1981.