All that a "better" language will bring you in this regard is that it will (a) push the sloppiness into places the compiler can't check and (b) change the ways things break when confronted with input beyond the design underlying their code.
Although I am in favor of languages that help prevent such nasties as input buffer overruns, this is an excellent point. A sloppy programmer will write sloppy code. Reminds me of an old saying that I heard years ago while studying mechanical engineering: a determined programmer can write a FORTRAN program in ANY language. :-) (Well, notwithstanding FORTRAN's built-in ability of handling complex numbers, but I digress...)
IMHO, the bottom line is that there's no excuse for sloppiness and a strong language can only do so much to prevent the programmer from his/her own sloppiness.
Cheers,
Ken van Wyk http://www.KRvW.com
