From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 2 12:19:45 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lariat.org (lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 800B437B401 for ; Fri, 2 Feb 2001 12:19:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from mustang.lariat.org (IDENT:ppp0.lariat.org@lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by lariat.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA07927; Fri, 2 Feb 2001 13:17:58 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010202130742.049c8a00@localhost> X-Sender: brett@localhost X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 13:17:46 -0700 To: Terry Lambert , jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org (j mckitrick) From: Brett Glass Subject: Re: software development tools - microsoft and unix Cc: tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <200102021957.MAA12520@usr08.primenet.com> References: <20010202134033.A91283@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 12:57 PM 2/2/2001, Terry Lambert wrote: >This is a misconception. The value of a protected mode OS for >a user is, in fact, stability. > >The value of a protected mode OS for a developer, who will only >be running a limited set of known tools, is more in how rigidly >the OS enforces _all_ boundaries. > >For example, it is not particularly useful to trap a NULL pointer >dereference in a production user's environment. Sure, you crash >only the offending program, but the user loses work, or at best, >fails to accomplish work. > >In a developement environment, the only option on a failed NULL >pointer dereference is to correct the failure. The result is >code which will not fail when moved to a production setting. Hence the notion that such checks should "fail hard" during testing and "fail soft" during operation. [SNIP] >Ideally, your OS would inherently have "purify" features that >don't require preprocessing (e.g. array bounds checking), to >the extent that it could. As I recall, Andy Hertzfeld was a strong advocate of building this into MacOS -- but to be used only during testing and development. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message