[LINK] The Ethics (!) of Dodgy Web Designers

[Rick Welykochy]

Craig Sanders wrote:

> not because there's anything wrong with the language, but because it's
> promoted as "easy" prograaming for non-programmers. so, of course, you
> get lots of non-programmers writing stuff in it and they dont have the
> knowledge or experience or just plain suspicion and paranoia required to
> develop robust applications for a hostile environment like the web.

It's pretty obvious, really. You do not learn brain surgery or nuclear
physics by reading a few web pages. The same goes for computer programming.
It is a lot more complicated and involved than most people think. And learning
"just a little" comp. sci. to get the job done is hazardous to everyone's
health. If it were that easy, web monkeys would be programming in C++
(because it is so efficient) and living on Unix ONLY (because it is so
secure). This is obviously NOT the case out there in meatspace.

I blame the ubiquity of Windows. Before that "operating system" (a term
I use with great reservation) was made popular (circa late 1908's), computer
science, computer programming and systems architecture really were fields
for the experts.

Now it has become a commodity hobby for any VB-weaned idiot to dip into.
I find that quite concerning and annoying myself. A visit to any of
thousands of programming resource forums/bulletin boards will demonstrate
what I am talking about.

Just yesterday I answered some pathetically basic questions about PHP
in a forum. The person involved had no idea what he was doing and his
code was as holey as Swiss cheese. He was actually trying to write a
multimedia content management system, but (a) had no idea what a CMS
was, (b) had no idea how complex a CMS really is and (c) wrote "cut & paste"
code copied from elsewhere that was leaving exploit points big enough to
drive a Russian mobster truck through. Absolutely pathetic. I could not
even begin to answer these problems in the forum. Rather, I corrected an
obvious error and left it at that. I left the forum feeling very unsatisfied
and absolutely concerned, a feeling that has haunted me ever since computing
became ubiquitous.


> ps: i tend to avoid mysql-based stuff too, for the same reason. it's
> often chosen by non-programmers for the same reason they chose php or
> CF or whatever - bogus claims of "easiness". anyone who understands
> databases well enough is likely to choose a better db engine like
> postgres or oracle. recent improvements to mysql make it emulate a real
> database server better than before, but IMO you're still better off
> using a real db in the first place. mysql is no longer just a glorified
> filesystem with an sql interface, but it's not yet a real database
> server either.

It is called ACID. If you have never heard the term, or are not trained
in even the basics espounded by the brilliant writer Date, you should
not be let within striking distance of a database. It *IS* rocket
science in this case.


cheers
rickw


-- 
_________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

Windows accelerator: G*m1*m2/r^2
     -- with apologies to John Clear