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"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Obviously "stupidity" is way too strong here, but the principle still applies.
by kmkemp 13y ago
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Obviously "stupidity" is way too strong here, but the principle still applies.
- senorprogrammer 13y agoIn this case I would replace "stupidity" with "assumption". It was code-reviewed so that level assumed correctness. It's in OpenSSL, which is written by experts, so the millions of us that use it every day assumed correctness. Our customers know little about the workings of the internet, so they assume correctness. This, incidentally, is the same sort of thinking that sometimes kills experts in dangerous situations: the assumption that someone smarter than us must by definition know more than us, so we can be lackadaisical. Witness Snow Fall (http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/?forceredirect=yes#/?part=tunnel-creek http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/?forceredirec...)
- anonbanker 13y agoThe rest of the quote is "...but don't rule out malice."