Sam,
> Bad HTML can lock up your computer and you will have to reboot.
> I could refer you to several websites that will consistently
> cause Arachne to crash. I know that there used to be some
> websites out there that will always cause MSIE or NetScape
> to crash. About three years ago I used to know about a web
page
> that had links saying something like "Click here to crash MSIE"
> and "Click here to crash Netscape" and "Click here to crash
> Arachne". According to what was being said about the site
> on a mailing list I subscribed to at the time, all of the links
> were reported to work exactly as advertised!
>
> Bad HTML usually contains inserted so-called Java Scripts or
Java
> Applets which run like executables to cause your computer to
> crash. Of course not all so-called Java Scripts and Applets
are
> bad.
Well, I will restrain myself from saying I am 100% sure I am
right, but in my experience, I have never seen HTML crash a
browser, and I would be very interested in seeing an example that
would do such a thing.
On the other hand, when I said HTML, I was referring specifically
to HTML, and not JavaScript, Java Applets, Perl Scripts, or any
other scripting language, which I agree, can crash a browser, and
have probably been responsible for many of the crashes I have
experienced.
> I haven't yet encountered the problem of overwriting my memory
> allocations. I haven't yet seen this happen probably because I
> have considerably less experience with C than you do. I do
have
> enough experience to have learned that C can do all kinds of
other
> disastrous stuff to me when I really screw up <g>. The
compiler
> isn't the culprit. If you accidently shoot yourself in the
foot
> you shouldn't blame the gun, even if the gun is found to be
> defective in design and manufacture.
Well, actually I have only been programming in C/C++ for about 6
months, but that is 6 months, several hours per day, seven days
per week.
Overwriting a memory allocation is as simple as assigning too
many characters to an array, for example: 'char cArray[2] = {'A',
'B', 'C'};' The C or C++ compiler will allow you to do this,
because it expects the programmer to have enough sense not to do
this, instead of having rules written into it forbidding the
programmer from making such an error. 'C' winds up getting
written to a memory address that is not reserved for cArray, and
if that address is already written to by something else, it is no
longer accurate. This is all that I was referring to.
The compiler *is* the 'culprit', in the sense that it is
deliberately designed to allow the programmer to do all sorts of
things that might not be sound programming, if the programmer is
careless enough to do them. From what history I have read, this
was done with deliberation, by the compiler designers, who
thought that it was better to have a compiler that would allow
for maximum creativity (such restrictive compiler rules might
also wind up forbidding the programmer from performing some other
programming feat, that no-one has even thought of yet, but which
might revolutionise the entire language), than a 'safe' compiler,
that would protect a stupid programmer from him or her self. I
personally agree with this idea.
On the other hand, I think that your analogy with the gun fails
utterly. If you shoot yourself in the foot with a gun that is
found to be defective in design or manufacture, in a manner that
causes the gun to fire in a case where a non-defective gun would
not have been able to fire (for instance, if you had the safety
set, but it was defective), I think that the maker would bear
some responsibility for your injury.
> > It is pretty funny, how many messed up scripts there are on
the Web,
> > though. My debugger detects them and goes off while I am
surfing,
> > asking me if I want to debug.
>
> I don't think it's funny at all. I think it is pathetic.
I guess I don't take this sort of stuff as seriously as you do. I
still remember the first incarnation of my website (just 20
months ago), and how cool it looked in MSIE 5, and how proud I
was of myself... until I started getting complaints from people
using Netscape, Opera, etc. I am still fixing bugs in my HTML...
of course, these are second and third generation bugs, and not
nearly as many or as glaring as the first generation bugs.
The same thing goes for a lot of the programs I write, in C/C++.
They are continually pushing the edge of my knowledge, and come
complete with the kinds of bugs one would expect to find, in the
work of a programmer of my skill level. My studies in Lin/Unix
administration tasks are doing well, too... I have successfully
rendered my operating system totally unbootable w/o a rescue
disk, writing global environmental variables on several
occasions! Now I have also finally succeeded in getting Borland
TASM 5.0 up and running, and have written my first couple
programs in Assembly Language as well, so I am looking forward to
crashing my boxes (DOS, Windows98 and 3.1, and Linux) in ever
new, and more creative ways, in the New Year.<g>
-wittig http://www.robertwittig.com/
When did ignorance become a point of view?
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