LWN.net Logo

How Do I Make This Hard to Misuse?

How Do I Make This Hard to Misuse?

Posted Mar 31, 2008 22:12 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: How Do I Make This Hard to Misuse? by ajross
Parent article: How Do I Make This Hard to Misuse?

Oh, believe me, even when I describe exactly what functions do in the 
header files, complete with examples... they *still* don't get read, or 
people read the first line and ignore the DO NOT DO THIS in screaming 
flashing red with associated MIDI of a screaming police siren (or the 
closest I can get to that in source code). If I make whateveritis not 
compile if misused, it gets hacked by someone else so that it *does* 
compile when misused, because 'that was easier'. (No it bloody wasn't.)

Given that I work in the financial sector I'm tempted to see if I can 
write something which if misused in an unlikely way transfers the contents 
of the misuser's bank account into mine, and document this as a failure 
mode. I'd be rich within the week! ;}


(Log in to post comments)

Copyright © 2013, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds