Talking with one of my professors, the subject of trust in computing came up. The professor related a story about a paper discussing a theoretical vulnerability in the entire computing infrastructure. (Unfortunately, I can’t find the paper. I think it was somebody’s PhD dissertation, but I’m not positive.) The issue, in essence is that compilers are themselves compiled.
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Archive for March, 2007
Mar
31
2007
Trust in Compilers
Mar
30
2007
The Hunt for an SCM System
Balancing software engineering best practices with the realities of being a student (and thus often working alone or in very small groups) is a bit tricky, particularly when it comes to source code management. I know that it’s a very good idea to use some sort of version system, I’ve been told this by my professors time and again, and I’ve learned it the hard way myself.
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Mar
21
2007
Nifty little python program
Create a python script with the following contents, and call it, say, quine.py:
1 2 3 | a = """a = %c%c%c%s%c%c%c print a %% (34, 34, 34, a, 34, 34, 34)""" print a % (34, 34, 34, a, 34, 34, 34) |
Now run it. The output is the program itself!
For double the fun, try this at a command prompt:
python quine.py | python - | python - | python -
(ad nauseum)
Super Cool!
Mar
19
2007
Newvow
I just stumbled across what looks to be one of the most promising Python based web frameworks I’ve seen to date: Newvow. While I haven’t had a chance to look at it much yet, it seems to be more along the lines of the “code behind” type of framework, a la ASP.NET, rather than the ModelViewController framework. I like this, as I’ve never really seen the need for the MVC pattern on the web (yes, I’m sure it makes sense for certain applications, but generally speaking…). When I’ve had a chance to poke at it some more I may write more.
