Expert: Flaw still dogs Windows patch

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Then apparently you aren't paying attention

Complexity is the enemy. This is one lesson learned very early in software industry. And it is one of the reason that software engineers decompose their systems into modules, insulating functions from one another, to contain the effect of flaws, reduce unintended consequences of changes and minimize the duration and cost of regression testing.

Microsoft, for whatever reason, chose to ignore the principles of software engineering, to the extreme of intermingling browser code with that of the operating system (claiming in a court of law that it was incapable of extracating it). The company openly admits to this design characteristic; it isn't just a matter of wild-eyed fanatics making accusations.

In a perfect world, there might be no consequences of the "monolithic" approach (that's how you say "spaghetti" when you own a multi-billion marketing machine). But the world isn't perfect - all code contains flaws. Any argument that open code or obscured code is less error-prone is religious - no hope of resolving it. But the other OSs you mention were designed to deal with the inevitability of flaws and the requirement to change code. Windows was not, and the are some posters who delight in those "same tired comments", in part because Microsoft goes to lengths to blame anything and anybody for its problems, which are also the customers' problems. Problem is, those comments are dead on - the codebase is the problem. If this "well duh" fact bothers you, your best defense is not to read the comments.

Posted by: IT_User   Posted on: 01/24/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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