[LINK] Antony Barry shared an article with you from Pocket

Roger Clarke Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Wed Mar 30 15:21:39 AEDT 2016


At 3:55 +0000 30/3/16, Antony Barry wrote:
>A programmer almost broke the Internet last week by deleting 11 lines of code
>http://www.sciencealert.com/how-a-programmer-almost-broke-the-internet-by-deleting-11-lines-of-code

As a 1970s-80s developer, I find this astounding:
>npm decided to take the unprecedented step of re-publishing the original 'left-pad' from a back up

So no-one takes responsibility for the integrity of what we used to call subroutine libraries?!


Ditto this bit:
> ... with all the focus on kik, no one considered the ramifications of deleting left-pad.

I'll grant that a where-used analysis is challenging in the case of an open networked library, but if the 'architecture' is an amateurish as this, there are umpteen disaster scenarios waiting to be exploited.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University



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