Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1577

David Wagner

No, that's because mainly they produced systems for different target environments. Some of them have been equally challenging.

Buffer overruns, among many other vulnerabilities, are automatically prevented if you produce code that correctly implements a correct design based on a correct analysis of the requirements (including robustness against hostile inputs). What the old- timers are uniformly trying to tell you is that this is not a new requirement, and much work has already gone into figuring out how to achieve such results. There is nothing significantly different about the Internet environment, except perhaps for the low quality of most systems attached to it.

No, not if you have an intelligent design, where message buffers are handled by a *single* module (aka "clbutt"). It's only by taking a disorganized approach to software construction that you end up with so many independent opportunities for error.

My own opinion is that the main problem is that so many people doing the work, at all levels, have a disdain for the idea that they need to learn before doing. Consequently, they make ignorant mistakes. Since the same kind of incompetence is occurring at the project management level, there is nothing in place to catch and correct this situation. Thus it persists.