From: rra@debian.org 
  
 Bj€€rn Mork  writes: 
  
 > We know what we have.  We also know that a "memory safe language" does 
 > not prevent bugs. Neither does a "stronger approach to unit 
 > testing". 
  
 Of course they do. Both of those techniques absolutely prevent bugs. 
  
 They don't prevent *all* bugs, because no possible technique prevents all 
 bugs. But both of those techniques are extremely effective at preventing 
 large classes of bugs. 
  
 > Rewriting code means adding new bugs, whether or not the tools catch 
 > some of them. 
  
 Yes. But if the tools are sufficiently better, it also means removing a 
 whole lot of bugs. The primary maintainer of the software is often in a 
 good position to know what the balance is likely to look like. 
  
 A new language dependency comes with some significant costs, and I 
 understand why people don't like those costs. Reasonable people can most 
 certainly disagree about the path forward. 
  
 But saying that adopting better tools necessarily means introducing more 
 bugs than it fixes is just silly. It's a context-dependent decision and 
 there are numerous examples of the opposite, particularly if the new tools 
 are used to rewrite a critical portion of the software that is known to be 
 flawed and has previously been a source of problems. 
  
 > BTW, reaching for "modern" means that you will never succeed. 
  
 Correct. Apart from trivial cases, software is never finished. "Success" 
 in that sense is not something that is possible; there will always be 
 something else to fix. 
  
 -- 
 Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)