The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

I believe that emulating try/catch/finally with gotos is possible, but will be really difficult to do that correctly. You must remember to call destructors yourself. You must match the type of exception to corresponding error handling sections yourself. You must rethrow (how? special return value?) any exception you have no error handling section yourself. etc. For me it looks discouraging. What the language does encourage me to do is on error resume next.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

I think TRWTF is using booleans to check for hacking attempts when it is equally easy to write:

const int MAGIC = 0xDEADBEEF;
volatile int x= MAGIC;
...
if(x != MAGIC){
  hacking attempt
}

I would rather use something like memory signing used by Starcraft... or actually I would not, but I like to bring up that idea from time to time.

KattMan · 2012-10-25 Reply Admin

lmm:
KattMan:

I would disagree with this point. "On Error Goto" was not bad, it was just so commonly misused. Think of the "Try Catch Finally" pattern and translate those under the cover jumps to VB6.

That's like saying goto was not bad, it was just so commonly misused.

Yes, disciplined programmers can use primitive control flow constructs to emulate higher level ones. Programming languages that encourage you to use primitive control flow constructs are still bad outside of very specialized circumstances.

No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad. It was a tool one of many in the language. The language did not encourage the use of it. It was possible to follow best practices and never use it unless you were trying to emulate try-catch.

KattMan · 2012-10-25 Reply Admin

qbolec:
I believe that emulating try/catch/finally with gotos is possible, but will be really difficult to do that correctly. You must remember to call destructors yourself. You must match the type of exception to corresponding error handling sections yourself. You must rethrow (how? special return value?) any exception you have no error handling section yourself. etc. For me it looks discouraging. What the language does encourage me to do is on error resume next.

Yes not easy, and the level of programmer normally using VB6 would not realize the necessary pieces to really do this right, but that would also be the same for someone working in C++; VB6 was deceptivly easy to read so people though they know what they were doing even when they didn't.
Once again though, the language didn't encourage On Error Resume Next any more then C++ encouraged the lack of proper memory management. It was just harder then most developers though and showed a lack of skill on those developers.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad.

But guns are bad!

They go off all by themselves, sometimes when you are cleaning them, but frequently for no reason at all.

If they find themselves within 1000 feet of a school they will erupt into an orgy of violence.

In the presence of an innocent victim they will either shoot the victim, or a cop, or a random bystander.

On a plane they will go off unexpectedly causing the entire plane to explode.

Guns will kill even when they aren't loaded, because they secretly stash one extra bullet in a hidden compartment no one could have expected.

Really the only situation where guns are not bad is in the hands of a donut-scarfing cop. Even a dirty cop is still OK. The gun sees that shiny badge and decides to behave itself and submit to the superior class of human.

KattMan · 2012-10-25 Reply Admin

The Brady Bunch:
KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad.
But guns are bad!
They go off all by themselves, sometimes when you are cleaning them, but frequently for no reason at all.

If they find themselves within 1000 feet of a school they will erupt into an orgy of violence.

In the presence of an innocent victim they will either shoot the victim, or a cop, or a random bystander.

On a plane they will go off unexpectedly causing the entire plane to explode.

Guns will kill even when they aren't loaded, because they secretly stash one extra bullet in a hidden compartment no one could have expected.

Really the only situation where guns are not bad is in the hands of a donut-scarfing cop. Even a dirty cop is still OK. The gun sees that shiny badge and decides to behave itself and submit to the superior class of human.

Just to add, guns are the only thing that can hurt Superman. You can shoot him all you want with bullets, but throw the gun at him and he has to duck.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad. It was a tool one of many in the language. The language did not encourage the use of it. It was possible to follow best practices and never use it unless you were trying to emulate try-catch.

Or you were trying to emulate a Continue statement, which Classic VB did not have.

It always saddens me to see the sheer number of people who have been brainwashed into believing that language feature x is inherently evil.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

you ment eval?

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Ben:
Geoff:
Yes it some pretty epic syntax fails...
Yes you some pretty epic grammer fails...

Whereas your failure is in spelling.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

MrBester:
I'll just leave this here...
For the lazy, it's a definition of MsoTriStateEnumeration, which is a tri-state Boolean with 5 possible values of which only two are supported. Just let that sink in for a while so you can appreciate the awesome WFTery of it.

Back in the olden days of COM, true could be -1 or +1 depending on the language, so you'll see this enum has true = -1 and "complement true" = +1. There are people still running macros written a decade ago.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

LOL, hilarious

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

KattMan:
Geoff:
Truly the real problem with classic VB is error handling. If it was not for the On Error Goto paradigm, which totally destroys the structure of what otherwise might have been well organized quasi OO programs with VB's limited classes.

I would disagree with this point. "On Error Goto" was not bad, it was just so commonly misused.

No, 'On Error Goto' sucked. Well, the way most people used it anyway, which was to jump to the 'error handler' block at the bottom, and then get totally confused.

The VB-bashers usually aren't aware of the fun variant, 'On Error Resume Next'; where if an error occurred, then why, you'd just continue to the next line! You know a WTF is in progress when you see that at the top of a code module. "Damn the errors, full speed ahead!"

'On Error Goto Next' wasn't all bad, and you could sort of emulate 'Try Catch' with it. Well, at least you could have little blocks with their own error handling, eg:

On Error Goto Next X = Y / 0 If Err Then MsgBox "YU div 0?" End If

Wrap that in a Do Loop or similar and you get something that makes a little bit of sense. More than 'On Error Goto WTF' anyway.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Actually, I should really point out that 'On Error Goto' still sucks.

Classic VB, in the guise of VBA, is bloody everywhere. Not just Excel & Word, but even things like AutoCAD and CorelDRAW.

Oh well, it's better than Lisp, I suppose.

Even worse is Lotus Notes, that has a (poor) clone of VB for scripting.

(MS used to have a list of all the licenced apps, but it vanished from their website. It was long list.)

Coyne · 2012-10-25 Reply Admin

He should have used '7423' for true and '944723' for false. Those are the best hex analogs for leet '7RUe' and 'pH4L23'.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Peter:
Ben:
Geoff:
Yes it some pretty epic syntax fails...
Yes you some pretty epic grammer fails...
Whereas your failure is in spelling.

Perhaps he was being ironic.

... which doesn't mean what most people seem to think it means. Isn't that ironic?

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

foo2:
the fun variant, 'On Error Resume Next'; where if an error occurred, then why, you'd just continue to the next line! You know a WTF is in progress when you see that at the top of a code module. "Damn the errors, full speed ahead!"

My first job (waaay too long ago...) was on a mainframe where the operating system default was essentially 'On Error Resume Next'. Batch jobs (the only thing it could do) were a series of instructions to load tapes, allocate the printer, and run programs (which, 99.999% of the time, read the tape and printed something). If any step failed, it would just plow on ahead. No tape? No problem. Tie up the printer anyway. No printer? That's OK. Spend 6 hours processing the tape anyway.

You had to explicitly test for errors after each step.

Of course most lazy programmers didn't.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Coyne:
He should have used '7423' for true and '944723' for false. Those are the best hex analogs for leet '7RUe' and 'pH4L23'.

You forgot 9441136 (pH41L3d).

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

article:
For the record though, nobody ever [b]wanted]/b] to 'steal my program'.

FTFY

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

entheory:
How in the hell would you even remember this? haha

At a guess: "Hmm....I wonder if any of this code ever made it in the real world, I'll use google" ... "OOh, lots of results....wait a minute....here's an unrelated reference to TheDailyWTF...."

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Carl:
My first job (waaay too long ago...) was on a mainframe where the operating system default was essentially 'On Error Resume Next'. Batch jobs (the only thing it could do) were a series of instructions to load tapes, allocate the printer, and run programs (which, 99.999% of the time, read the tape and printed something). If any step failed, it would just plow on ahead.

You mean, like shell scripts on most contemporary server operating systems work by default unless the poor underpaid schmuck writing them knows the magic "set -e" incantation?

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Duckman:
This is simply standard practice in the industry. Consider one of the most central functions in the Windows API, namely GetMessage. The description is available here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms644936(v=vs.85).aspx
Notice that it returns the type BOOL, suggesting a boolean value.

Now read the description of the return value.

Well, I'm beginning to understand why Microsoft engineers can't code their way out of a paper bag. All of the exploits, security holes, lack of support for standards... it all makes sense when you know that, at a very fundamental level, even the people writing the underlying API haven't a clue what they're fucking talking about.

PiisAWheeL · 2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Dude:
article:
For the record though, nobody ever [b]wanted]/b] to 'steal my program'.
FTFY

No you didn't. You fucked it up more.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Carl:
My first job (waaay too long ago...) was on a mainframe where the operating system default was essentially 'On Error Resume Next'. Batch jobs (the only thing it could do) were a series of instructions to load tapes, allocate the printer, and run programs (which, 99.999% of the time, read the tape and printed something). If any step failed, it would just plow on ahead.
You mean, like shell scripts on most contemporary server operating systems work by default unless the poor underpaid schmuck writing them knows the magic "set -e" incantation?

Grow up, both of you. Scripts / jobs / programs are nothing but "magic incantations". It is a language, composed of words, syntax, and conventions. Either you learn it and use it correctly or you don't. If you can't learn the appropriate "incantations" then maybe you need to fall back to being a mere end user who spends all day just pointing at what they want and grunting.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

xtremezone:
It drives me crazy when people compare booleans with constants. It's like their mind can't process code unless it reads like natural language. And if that's the case then I'd say you're in the wrong profession.

And if you can't understand (or at least tolerate) the fact that someone whose code you inherited might have preferred expressing themselves differently, perhapos your in the wrong profession.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

Amateurs:

http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_17.html

That is how it's done.

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

qbolec:

captcha:modo:

Compare:

if numberOfCats == 2:
    doStuff()
if cookieJarLabel == "Empty":
doStuff()
if sequence == [1, 2, 3]:
doStuff()
if permissionIsGranted:
doStuff()
if lineEnding == b"\r\n":
doStuff()

FTFY

Do you change the label on the cookie jar depending on whether it's got bisuits in it or not?

might I suggest


if cookieJarLabel == "Chocolate Chip":
    doStuff()

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

The Brady Bunch:
KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad.
But guns are bad!
They go off all by themselves, sometimes when you are cleaning them, but frequently for no reason at all.

If they find themselves within 1000 feet of a school they will erupt into an orgy of violence.

In the presence of an innocent victim they will either shoot the victim, or a cop, or a random bystander.

On a plane they will go off unexpectedly causing the entire plane to explode.

Guns will kill even when they aren't loaded, because they secretly stash one extra bullet in a hidden compartment no one could have expected.

Really the only situation where guns are not bad is in the hands of a donut-scarfing cop. Even a dirty cop is still OK. The gun sees that shiny badge and decides to behave itself and submit to the superior class of human.

You should be a journalist. Bonus points for pointing out an innocent victim is different to a random bystander (who might be a Guilty-as-sin Victim).

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

JJ:
KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad. It was a tool one of many in the language. The language did not encourage the use of it. It was possible to follow best practices and never use it unless you were trying to emulate try-catch.
Or you were trying to emulate a Continue statement, which Classic VB did not have.
It always saddens me to see the sheer number of people who have been brainwashed into believing that language feature x is inherently evil.

ORLY? Do they jump back to the outside of the loop, or under the condition?

Might work for a while, but I reckon a "for" loop might fuck your average with a continue implemented by goto

2012-10-25 Reply Admin

herry:
You should be a journalist.

Ugh! Worst insult I've sustained in all my years on TDWTF!

Coyne · 2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Bongo:
Paul:
Someone in 2007 already commented that they found this in their VB program.
You're either a savant or your mind is a infinite junkyard. Remembering a five-year-old (!) comment (!!) found on second page of comments (!!!) ... Now that's something!

Remembering the comment is something...remembering Google search is priceless!

Coyne · 2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Duckman:
This is simply standard practice in the industry. Consider one of the most central functions in the Windows API, namely GetMessage. The description is available here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms644936(v=vs.85).aspx
Notice that it returns the type BOOL, suggesting a boolean value.

Now read the description of the return value.

Yeesh! Talk about bondage and discipline!

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

When I have to code a conditional my thought process is "now we execute this only if value_x is 3", or "now we execute this only if value_y is not 'foo' ", or "now we execute this only if value_z is true". So isn't it natural to type the code in a similar way every time?

The problem with this kind of thinking is that the comparison operator itself returns a boolean value. So, if you write

if foo == true

and you want to be consistent, you must change that to

if (foo == true) == true

and so on. It's booleans all the way down.

dkf · 2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Some Random Texan:
[GOTO] breaks RAII in C++, and it would totally break garbage collection in .NET if it worked the same way as VB6.0.

It certainly shouldn't break RAII, unless your compiler is a POS that shouldn't be used.

More generally, GOTO is a control structure primitive that can be used to model higher-level concepts. (At the bottom level, a CPU only ever deals with LITERAL GOTO, CONDITIONAL GOTO, and COMPUTED GOTO. Everything else is built on top of that.) Because it is a low-level primitive, it's not easy to use well — and if you have something that models what you are doing better you shouldn't be using GOTO — but that doesn't mean that you should never use it; it would be arrogant to say that we've discovered all possible useful control structures (we have a minimal set with if, while and a bunch of flag variables, but that doesn't mean that the translation to such a set is efficient) so it is useful to be able to still make our own where necessary.

But for kiddies doing “My First Programming Course”, avoiding GOTO is a good idea.

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Frank:
The real WTF here is Visual Basic used together with the term professional programming ...

All VB programmers are professional. I mean, for fucks sake, would you write in VB if you weren't getting paid for it?

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

The waftery?

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Mark:
JJ:
KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad. It was a tool one of many in the language. The language did not encourage the use of it. It was possible to follow best practices and never use it unless you were trying to emulate try-catch.
Or you were trying to emulate a Continue statement, which Classic VB did not have.
It always saddens me to see the sheer number of people who have been brainwashed into believing that language feature x is inherently evil.
ORLY? Do they jump back to the outside of the loop, or under the condition?

Might work for a while, but I reckon a "for" loop might fuck your average with a continue implemented by goto

Whichever you want. It's ugly, but it can be done.

For i = 1 To 8 continue: // work if condition = bad i = i + 1 if i > 8 Exit For Goto continue End If // more work Loop

(it's been a few years since I've done VB6, so sorry if the syntax isn't all there)

xtremezone · 2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Sometimes goto is an acceptable solution. Being afraid of it is just as bad as abusing it.

blah_t * blah_load(
    const char * const filename,
    const char ** const errmsg)
{
    int rc;
    blah_t * blah = 0;
    blargh_t * blargh = 0;
    blah_file_t blah_file;

    rc = blah_file_load(&blah_file, filename, errmsg);
    if(rc != 0)
    {
        goto catch;
    }

    blargh = blah_file_get_blargh(&blah_file, errmsg);
    if(blargh == 0)
    {
        goto catch;
    }

    blah = blah_create(blargh);
    if(blah == 0)
    {
        errmsg = "Out of memory.";
        goto catch;
    }

finally:
    blah_file_close(&blah_file);
    return blah;
catch:
    if(blah == 0)
    {
        blargh_destory(blargh);
    }
    blah_destroy(blah);
    blah = blargh = 0;
    goto finally;
}

:(

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Abico:
Mark:
JJ:
KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad. It was a tool one of many in the language. The language did not encourage the use of it. It was possible to follow best practices and never use it unless you were trying to emulate try-catch.
Or you were trying to emulate a Continue statement, which Classic VB did not have.
It always saddens me to see the sheer number of people who have been brainwashed into believing that language feature x is inherently evil.
ORLY? Do they jump back to the outside of the loop, or under the condition?

Might work for a while, but I reckon a "for" loop might fuck your average with a continue implemented by goto
Whichever you want. It's ugly, but it can be done.

For i = 1 To 8 continue: // work if condition = bad i = i + 1 if i > 8 Exit For Goto continue End If // more work Loop

(it's been a few years since I've done VB6, so sorry if the syntax isn't all there)

Hm, rethinking my example. What I did could be done without the gotos by just putting the "more work" inside an IF (i.e. if condition != bad).

So never mind that.

pauly · 2012-10-26 Reply Admin

The Brady Bunch:
KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad.
But guns are bad!
They go off all by themselves, sometimes when you are cleaning them, but frequently for no reason at all.

If they find themselves within 1000 feet of a school they will erupt into an orgy of violence.

In the presence of an innocent victim they will either shoot the victim, or a cop, or a random bystander.

On a plane they will go off unexpectedly causing the entire plane to explode.

Guns will kill even when they aren't loaded, because they secretly stash one extra bullet in a hidden compartment no one could have expected.

Really the only situation where guns are not bad is in the hands of a donut-scarfing cop. Even a dirty cop is still OK. The gun sees that shiny badge and decides to behave itself and submit to the superior class of human.

My sarcasm detector may be broke, but these things all seem highly unlikely.

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

The Brady Bunch:
KattMan:
No Goto was not bad, saying it is bad is like saying guns are bad.
But guns are bad!
They go off all by themselves, sometimes when you are cleaning them, but frequently for no reason at all.

If they find themselves within 1000 feet of a school they will erupt into an orgy of violence.

In the presence of an innocent victim they will either shoot the victim, or a cop, or a random bystander.

On a plane they will go off unexpectedly causing the entire plane to explode.

Guns will kill even when they aren't loaded, because they secretly stash one extra bullet in a hidden compartment no one could have expected.

Really the only situation where guns are not bad is in the hands of a donut-scarfing cop. Even a dirty cop is still OK. The gun sees that shiny badge and decides to behave itself and submit to the superior class of human.

It's not that guns are bad per se, it's that it's a fallacy to think that having a gun makes you safer.

If a criminal threatens you and you pull a gun, now the criminal is in a position where he must kill you or be killed himself. But if you don't have a gun, then he can just take your money or whatever and leave you unhurt.

Futhermore, if you have a gun in your home, then in an argument someone might rashly grab the gun and kill a family member. Or a person in a moment of depression might kill themselves.

That is, violent criminals, who are in the very act of committing a felony, can be trusted not to hurt anyone unless absolutely necessary for their own self-defense. But the average law-abiding person who gets hold of a gun is likely to go on a rampage of violence at the slightest provocation.

That's how it was explained to me, anyway.

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Abico:
Abico:

For i = 1 To 8 continue: // work if condition = bad i = i + 1 if i > 8 Exit For Goto continue End If // more work Loop

(it's been a few years since I've done VB6, so sorry if the syntax isn't all there)
Hm, rethinking my example. What I did could be done without the gotos by just putting the "more work" inside an IF (i.e. if condition != bad).

So never mind that.

What you want is:

On Error Goto Next Do 'do work here... If Err = 0 Then Exit Do End If 'condition bad here... Loop

Go around in circles until you don't get error, then exit the loop.

The Do Loop merely replaces the label & Goto, allowing you to claim to be highly evolved by not using the dreaded GoTo statement. Sure, whatever floats your boat.

You can always toss in a counter to exit the loop as well.

KattMan · 2012-10-26 Reply Admin

jay:

It's not that guns are bad per se, it's that it's a fallacy to think that having a gun makes you safer.

If a criminal threatens you and you pull a gun, now the criminal is in a position where he must kill you or be killed himself. But if you don't have a gun, then he can just take your money or whatever and leave you unhurt.

Futhermore, if you have a gun in your home, then in an argument someone might rashly grab the gun and kill a family member. Or a person in a moment of depression might kill themselves.

That is, violent criminals, who are in the very act of committing a felony, can be trusted not to hurt anyone unless absolutely necessary for their own self-defense. But the average law-abiding person who gets hold of a gun is likely to go on a rampage of violence at the slightest provocation.

That's how it was explained to me, anyway.

Most all of this is true, given the fact that most people with guns are afraid to use them unless extremly provoked, and no having a gun pointed at them mostly doesn't count.

Personally, if a thief breaks into my house, it's not a kill or be killed situation for him, it's simply be killed. I won't hesitate.

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

KattMan:
it's not a kill or be killed situation for him, it's simply be killed. I won't hesitate.

The ITG is the real WTF.

Get your hand off it and grow up.

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Imagine the following hypothetical scenarios:

[*] Lawful citizens and criminals cannot acquire guns. Most would agree that this is relatively safe. Nobody has any guns so obviously guns themselves cannot hurt anybody.

[*] Lawful citizens cannot acquire guns, but criminals can. A somewhat more reasonable picture for the USA in the short term, if guns were ever to be restricted. Those with intent to do harm still possess guns, but the innocent people that don't want to hurt anyone are defenseless against them. Most would agree that this is relatively unsafe.

[*] Lawful citizens and criminals can both acquire guns. On the one hand, it is possible for there to be a lot more guns, but on the other hand the consequences for using them are more immediate for everyone. A criminal cannot just boldly pull a gun on a random group of people without fearing that they will pull guns right back on him. That's a lose-lose situation. He is either killed, caught, or kills and raises the heat on himself.

For the record, even though the majority of the USA is free to own and possess guns there actually aren't very many gun owners proportionate to the population. In other words, most people do not own guns, and fewer still carry them around them with, even though they have the right to.

Imagine that you are a criminal (assuming you're not ;). Let's also say that you have a gun because, frankly, you don't care if it's illegal to own one. You break the law anyway. Which do you prefer: a society where the lawful citizen you plan on ripping off and/or assaulting cannot possess a gun or the society where he has the right to own and carry one? Odds are you will prefer to have the upper hand. Criminals are not bullet proof. Most of them are going to be afraid of getting shot too.

Accidents involving guns are also not very common. Car accidents are a much more serious problem. I would agree that gun ownership should require a certain level of education and/or training. That said, I wish they didn't give driver's licenses out so easily too. There are a lot of people that are very dangerous behind the wheel that should be taking the bus.

KattMan · 2012-10-26 Reply Admin

foo2:
KattMan:
it's not a kill or be killed situation for him, it's simply be killed. I won't hesitate.

The ITG is the real WTF.

Get your hand off it and grow up.

How is this a problem? Am I suppose to ask the thief if he is there to just take my TV or to kill me, my wife and my little girl? He is there, without permission, already threatening, I am not going to stop and ask questions.
You sir, probably take the stance that I am killing him to keep my TV, I take the stance that he risked his life for one when there are safer ways to get one, to bad he lost.

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

KattMan:
How is this a problem? Am I suppose to ask the thief if he is there to just take my TV or to kill me, my wife and my little girl? He is there, without permission, already threatening, I am not going to stop and ask questions. You sir, probably take the stance that I am killing him to keep my TV, I take the stance that he risked his life for one when there are safer ways to get one, to bad he lost.

You sir, should challenge the thief to compare penis sizes. Biggest gets the TV, odds are you'll lose.

I'd beat both of you, of course, but I don't have much use for a TV.

KattMan · 2012-10-26 Reply Admin

foo2:
KattMan:
How is this a problem? Am I suppose to ask the thief if he is there to just take my TV or to kill me, my wife and my little girl? He is there, without permission, already threatening, I am not going to stop and ask questions. You sir, probably take the stance that I am killing him to keep my TV, I take the stance that he risked his life for one when there are safer ways to get one, to bad he lost.

You sir, should challenge the thief to compare penis sizes. Biggest gets the TV, odds are you'll lose.

I'd beat both of you, of course, but I don't have much use for a TV.

It's not about comparing, it's not about who has a tougher attitude. I don't want to fool around with an intruder. If he intelligently takes off back out the door before I get a sight on him I won't pursue. It is about one thing and one thing only, defense of me and my family, nothing more, nothing less.

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

jay:

That is, violent criminals, who are in the very act of committing a felony, can be trusted not to hurt anyone unless absolutely necessary for their own self-defense. But the average law-abiding person who gets hold of a gun is likely to go on a rampage of violence at the slightest provocation.

That's how it was explained to me, anyway.

For me it's about odds. I don't know exactly what the odds would be of a gun accident or suicide if I had a gun in my house, but I do know it would be higher than now with no gun. Is it worth taking that risk? How likely is it I'll need a gun in my house? If it's likely enough to be worth the risk, I am going to start looking for a house in a different neighborhood. The safety of my family is really the most important thing, so I don't know why I would risk compromising it by either living in a dangerous neighborhood or having a gun in the house or both.

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

When guns are prohibited from goto, only users of goto will have guns.

Hitler implemented gun control: Exit Thread

2012-10-26 Reply Admin

Oops, I got that backwards.

When guns are required to goto, only users of goto will have guns.

Fortunately this thread is already exited.

Confessions: Hacker Proof Boolean

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