Jargons of Info Tech industry

[Paul Boddie]

Roedy Green wrote:
> Just how long do you want to stall evolution?  Do you imagine people
> 200 years from now will be still be using pure ASCII text unable to
> find a solution to JavaScript viruses (turn off JS), pop-up( disable
> popups) etc.?

People in their sky-cars turning off JavaScript in their browsers: what
a thought!

But to suggest a seemingly endless list of "user customisations" to
prevent heightened exposure to irritating advertisers, phishing
attempts, malware and so on is to miss the point, just as Bill Gates
smugly does so (and I say this at the risk of sounding like a certain
other "contributor" to this newsgroup) by saying that computer software
isn't good enough and could be better/more secure/more stable, despite
running a software monopoly for the past decade or so and having an
unparalleled opportunity to do something about the situation instead of
just "milking it".

Every so often, discussions like these remind me of some ancient work I
once did on the topic of avoiding some of the issues raised by mobile
code and mobile content. Despite the likes of Mr Gates who will
probably try and persuade you that we're on the cutting edge
(presumably before demanding a premium to "sort it all out"), many of
the issues have been known about for a good while. Of course, that
doesn't mean that the software industry is in any hurry to do anything
about it.

Paul