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That was a great post, thanks. I'd like to add another point - one may need paranoia [the common, not medical, interpretation] to make all that power work with

That was a great post, thanks. I'd like to add another point - one may need paranoia [the common, not medical, interpretation] to make all that power work without bugs. You know the quote about a good programmer needing laziness, impatience, and hubris? I disagree, for many systems it should be laziness, impatience, and _paranoia_. Paranoia puts in asserts and assumes any untrusted input is just that, and puts in documentation for the future 'you' on the project to consult. Because as you say, nobody has your back or will review your trickiest code (on the average funded project with one smart guy doing most of the work), and frankly, hackers _are_ out to get your code. So when we don't have an explicit check against something, the behavior is undefined. And when there is no check against power , we know where the road leads.

w_t_payne 13y ago
Well, one of the nice things (I think) about being a software developer (and one-time "scientist") is that you get to measure your mettle with nature - to test your ideas out in the real world - to see if your preconceptions hold, or if your ideas are only so much hot air ... and all too often, they are. My initial ideas are always wrong (well, most of the time), and I pretty much always need several rounds of testing against reality to refine my designs into something workable. Getting the right answer is hard. Really hard. I never understood how some people could go through life and avoid ever being wrong; dancing around responsibilities, never taking the blame, being driven by a (frankly irresponsible) culture that demands perfection. For me, my failures are lessons; mistakes marking a path of learning and progress. Good will; systematic persistence; humility and humour - all recipes for learning and improvement: Flashy self-aggrandisement, an emphasis on performance and (self-proclaimed) brilliance: all recipes for deceit, lies and failure.

w_t_payne 13y ago

Well, one of the nice things (I think) about being a software developer (and one-time "scientist") is that you get to measure your mettle with nature - to test your ideas out in the real world - to see if your preconceptions hold, or if your ideas are only so much hot air ... and all too often, they are. My initial ideas are always wrong (well, most of the time), and I pretty much always need several rounds of testing against reality to refine my designs into something workable. Getting the right answer is hard. Really hard. I never understood how some people could go through life and avoid ever being wrong; dancing around responsibilities, never taking the blame, being driven by a (frankly irresponsible) culture that demands perfection. For me, my failures are lessons; mistakes marking a path of learning and progress. Good will; systematic persistence; humility and humour - all recipes for learning and improvement: Flashy self-aggrandisement, an emphasis on performance and (self-proclaimed) brilliance: all recipes for deceit, lies and failure.