RE: Windoze almost managed to 200x repeat 9/11

["joe" <mvp () joeware net>]

I get paid nothing to hang out on this list. In fact many of my friends feel
I am wasting considerable time here because the vast majority of the people
are Linux bigots simply holding each others', ummm, hands. 

Once in a while though some seriously good information or conversation
occurs here which is why I like to hang out and most of my responses tend to
be offlist. Occasionally I like to dampen some of the occasional this or
that about how bad Windows sucks from people who don't know enough about how
it works to even have a very good opinion. They are intelligent people
mostly, they just have a hamster up their bum about billg or MS for some
reason. 

It is funny to me how this thread came onto the list as a "Windows sucks"
thread when it should have been a serious, "some programmers don't
understand data types sucks" thread. It is poor programming habits like this
that cause a great deal of the flaws in apps and OSes that others take
advantage of. Programmers need to understand the proper way to handle the
datatypes they use in their applications, whether it be checking for data
size constraints or data range constraints. 

As for missing out on cash or something from MS, I am not so sure MS would
have me as an employee at the moment as I spend considerable time banging on
them and their OS and choices. I don't do it out in the public lists like
this as I am trying to be a rightous d00d to all of you cool people. I bang
on them in the private groups that have MS people seriously looking to make
things better. 

For this specific thread, my main point is that someone who can't figure out
that an unsigned integer value that is incrementing will roll at some point
is a dangerous programmer no matter what OS they are on. This has nothing to
do with Windows or any OS. It is how computers work period. There isn't a
single OS out there that you could constantly increment a 32 bit unsigned
counter and not roll to zero. This is way below anything the OS can control.
At best it halts the program as soon as the overflow kicks. That really
wouldn't help much except possibly with data corruption. I don't think an OS
should protecting apps from data corruption due to the app losing count
though.

  joe


-----Original Message-----
From: full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com
[mailto:full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com] On Behalf Of devis
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 12:49 PM
Cc: full-disclosure () lists netsys com
Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Windoze almost managed to 200x repeat 9/11

Joe dude, how much u are getting from M$ a month to hang around this list ?
Zero ? Noway....send em a letter now dude.
And please don't serve me,  'just being objective crap', you HAVE to be
interested to defend it that well., if not, well,  you may be missing on
something...

joe wrote:

> Definitely some interesting theories Ron.
>
>  
>
> > 1> the code was better done under the original OS, unix
> >    
>
> While possible, nothing actually points at this as being the case. 
> Anyway, I would be curious as to the functionality of the system when 
> it was first launched on UNIX versus the end-result. Put this on 
> Windows and run it 10 years and then port to UNIX or *nix and there 
> will almost certainly be screwups there as well. In fact, I would be 
> pretty confident. I have dealt with poor ports to and from Windows and 
> *nix. I have even dealt with bad ports from Mainframes to UNIX where 
> the whole time the Mainframe people were saying the same types of 
> things about UNIX that you like to say about Windows. Being a good 
> coder for one OS doesn't make you one for all Oses when dealing with system
level components and interfaces.
>  
>
> > 2> considering "how often" you seems to run into this same
> > issue with other coders in the windows realm, windows coders tend to 
> > be especially lazy/clueless as compared to coders in other OS'
> >    
>
> I would expect the issue is the same as always. Sheer volume. There are 
> good and bad coders period. Microsoft has surely drawn more poor coders 
> than any other OS with its pushing of the RAD/simple coding environment
such as VB.
> Additionally the Windows environment as a whole has more inexperienced 
> users and admins and people likely to try and code. There are also many 
> good ones as well, they are just well buried in the poor ones.
>
>
>  
>
> > 3> tools to code with in the windows realm are not as 
> > 3> developed/functional
> > as they are in other envs
> >    
>
> I would say this opinion is uninformed.
>
>
>  
>
> > 4> M$ does not properly provide developers with clued information with
> > which to do their jobs
> >    
>
> This is another opinion which I would call rather uninformed. 
>
> Even if there was poor function documentation, if you have a function, 
> any function returning a constantly increasing counter you know, as a 
> skilled programmer, that eventually it has to do something other than 
> increase. If the value is signed the sign bit will flip or if it is 
> unsigned it will roll to 0. How can a good programmer think any other 
> thing? The compiler could have inserted exception handling code but at 
> best that is simply going to bounce the program out of a normal running 
> state. That is a compiler thing though, not an OS thing. I do hope you 
> aren't trying to tell me that UNIX can magically and infinitely 
> maintain a counter on a variable with a fixed bit size. I try to consider
you to be a bit more intelligent than that.
> To put it in anotehr way, if you have a set of tires on a car that are 
> rated for 75 MPH (say off road truck tires) and some person goes 90 and 
> the tires fly apart or the vehicle flips or both, is the issue the 
> driver, the vehicle manufacturer, the tire manufacturer, or the tree 
> that produced the rubber for the tire? This is the same sort of case. 
> You have it in your mind ahead of time who you want to be at fault 
> because you have a bug up your bum about it and work to prove that stance.
>
> Poor coding is a result of poor coders. I have seen amazingly bad code 
> on all OS/RTS platforms I have worked on from RSTS to BSD to Linux to 
> Windows to DOS to VMS. I have also seen some amazingly good stuff on 
> the same platforms. Someone who doesn't understand basic data types and 
> how to handle their limits is going to do a shitty job on all of the
platforms.
> Is the ratio of good admins to bad admins better in UNIX versus Windows?
> Absolutely. Is the ratio of good programmers to bad programmers better 
> in UNIX versus Windows? Most certainly. Does this mean all Windows 
> admins are bad admins, obviously not. Does this mean all Windows 
> programmers are bad programmers, obviously not. I specifically say UNIX 
> versus *nix because I think *nix is one or more steps closer to Windows 
> in this discussion and getting closer as its popularity grows with 
> Windows users. Switching to *nix doesn't make the admins or coders 
> switching (or just using in tandem) any better simply because they
switched.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ron DuFresne [mailto:dufresne () winternet com]
> Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 11:25 PM
> To: joe
> Cc: mcw () wcd se; full-disclosure () lists netsys com
> Subject: RE: [Full-disclosure] Windoze almost managed to 200x repeat 
> 9/11
>
> On Fri, 24 Sep 2004, joe wrote:
>
>  
>
> > Again, there are valid uses of GetTickCount and there are safe ways of 
> > doing so. If there is concern, I do recommend testing functionality 
> > associated with each of the DLLs. You might find a bug you can report 
> > for
> >    
> kudos.
>  
>
> > On the incident, I would guess the vendor never had a clue it would do
> >    
> that.
>  
>
> > That function can't return more than 49.7 days without breaking every 
> > app that currently uses it. MS can not do that. That is why there is 
> > another function to get the info with a different datatype. See my 
> > other
> >    
> posts.
>  
>
>
> What seems to read clearly from your replies to this thread is that 
> either;
>
> 1> the code was better done under the original OS, unix
>
> 2> considering "how often" you seems to run into this same issue with
> other coders in the windows realm, windows coders tend to be especially 
> lazy/clueless as compared to coders in other OS'
>
> 3> tools to code with in the windows realm are not as 
> 3> developed/functional
> as they are in other envs
>
> 4> M$ does not properly provide developers with clued information with
> which to do their jobs
>
>
> > From which you can combine any or all of the above for a correct
> interpretation of the total of your replies.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ron DuFresne
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It 
> eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the 
> business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart
>       ***testing, only testing, and damn good at it too!***
>
> OK, so you're a Ph.D.  Just don't touch anything.
>
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>
>  

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