Doug Nelson

@dochne.com

90 Followers 271 Following

Software Dev. Hiking keeps my soul intact (maybe)

An emf duck!
“But almost all programs have paths that crash, and perhaps the density of crashes will be tolerable.” This is a very odd statement. Mature C programs written by professional coders (Redis is a good example) basically never crash in the experience of users. Crashing, in such programs, is a rare occurrence mostly obtained by attackers on purpose, looking for code paths that generate a memory error that - if the program is used as it should - are never reached. This does not mean that C code never segfaults: it happens, especially when developed without care and the right amount of testing. But the code that is the most security sensitive, like C Unix servers, is high quality and crashes are *mostly* a security problem and a lot less a stability problem.
A view from the top of a cliff - the day is warm and the view slightly hazy despite having great viewing distance. A reservoir can be seen in the mid distance, surrounded by green fields. A woman sits on a rock in the foreground looking out over the scenery
A webpage screenshot. On the left hand side, it has a sidebar with all the recent vaguely reassuring state machines generated by HappyAutomata - on the right it has the image of the state machine, with three form controls underneath: one for the regex itself, one for a list of valid patterns and one for a list of invalid patterns
A photo off Curbar Edge in the Peak District. Green fields stretch off into the distance with a sky that is mostly blue, but with some large fluffy clouds. In the foreground you can just see the edge of the rocks that we're looking off.
A dirt path winds through a green field travelling all the way to as far as you can see - a solitary tree can be seen in the mid-distance by the path, giving the photo a odd sense that it represents a journey in itself. Above, we're treated to the beginnings of a sunset as the sky just starts to tinge pink, above hills of enough distance they're of different shades. The sky itself is blue with small amounts of wispy clouds reflecting the suns light to bring a kind of richness to the sky.