--- grenville armitage <garmitage(_at_)swin(_dot_)edu(_dot_)au> wrote:
<snip>
the market has sight. market analysts have hind-sight.
engineering is about fore-sight. therein lies a world of
difference in roles and responsibilities.
The fore-sight of any role is constrained by assumptions. An engineer who
designs a building to withstand a collision with a 707 suddenly has a lot more
hindsight (than fore-sight) when it is hit with a 767. So let's acknowledge
there is no such thing as perfect fore-sight for any role, only better or worse
given a set of assumptions.
The ethos of running code is all about establishing a proof that something
works. Challenging design assumptions is worthwhile, especially if you can see
the 767 coming, but this institution appears to give weight to running "code".
So in the context of running code, the market can be the judge.
--- Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu wrote:
<snip>
If letting the market be judge is a good idea, why is such a large percentage
of my bandwidth chewed up by emails bearing viruses? <
A large percentage of your bandwidth is chewed up because there is no market -
no cost associated with sending an email. A large percentage of those emails
have viruses because a) viruses are to cyber-assets what WMD are to physical
assets - i.e. widespread damage from one device b) the crimial justice system
has not kept pace with technological change and c) there is resitance to
allowing the crimial justice system to keep pace (which may or may not be good
thing depending on your view). Put another way, if the criminal justice system
had the same level of effectiveness at protecting physical assets, I wonder
whether civilization as we know it would exist.