Shortcomings of Commonly Used Computer Languages

A.     Typecasting issue in C++

C++ code of type casting, which is considered as an insecured code. The same problem occurred in Ariane 5, which ended up in a crash. 

According to (Soulie, 2007), Type casting is known as converting an expression of a given type into another type. In C, type converstion can be done using,

   1.      Implicit Convertion –  one type of data is automatically converted into compatible type of data.

   2.      Explicit Convertion – Many conversions, specially thos that imply a different interpreation of the value. It has 4 specific casting operators (dynamic_cast, reinterpret_cast, static_cast and const_cast).

Here, the conversion truncates, that is the fractional part is discared. There is a data loss, since the out put is 13, expected output was 14.

Remedy – Use static_cast and add 0.5 before casting.

c = static_cast(b + 0.5) + a; // output is 14

Because of above mentioned reasons, Eiffel does not allow these type castings.

B.     Break statement in Java

Break statement is used to terminate the loop program on a pre defined condition. One basic rule in structured programming is, each control structure should contain only one entry point and one exit point. But above code has 2 exit points. 

In the above code snippet, for loop is supposes to execute 10 times. It has if condition to check loop, if it reach on 5 of value i, break point will be executed. Once break point is executed, for loop will terminate.

Moreover, using break statement is a bad practice, since that could possibly skip some code after the break. Also it is difficult to go through the flow of the program break statements. It would be more difficult with nested loops. So using break statement might help in some situations, such as switch statements, but in the other way program is not secured.

C.     Un-type variables in PHP

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a un-type programming language, which any variable can store data of any type. Un-typed programming languages make programmers responsibility to avoid run time errors.

It is not secured, since variable does not have a type and programmers have to keep sure about what is stored and where it is stored. Error may occur at run-time. 

Typed languages, such as Eiffel, Java and C++, identify errors at compile time, since they have compilers. Therefore, programs ensure that program will not fail at run-time. Therefore it is another vital feature of language security in typed languages. 

References

Blankenhorn, D., Lessons from Google Wave failure. CBS Interactive [Online] Available at: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/lessons-from-google-wave-failure/7025  [accessed: 31^st October 2010]

Douglas, N. A., (2000), The explosion of Ariane 5. University of Minnesota [online] Available at: http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/ariane.html [accessed: 29^th October 2010]

Eiffel Software. Fortune 500 Technology Manufacturer Uses Eiffel Software to Dominate its Market. Available at: http://www.eiffel.com/executives/case_studies/storage/storage.pdf [accessed: 29^th October 2010]

Goldstein, H., Who Killed the Virtual Case File?. North America: IEEE Spectrum, [online] Available at: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/who-killed-the-virtual-case-file [accessed 30^th October 2010]

Greenemeier, L., (2005), Tech vs. Terrorism, UBM TechWeb [online] Available at: http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=164300083 [accessed: 30^th October 2010]

National Research Council (2004), A Review of the FBI’s Trilogy Information Technology Modernization Program. Computer Science and Telecommunication Board, National Academies Press, Washington D.C, [online] Available at: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10991&page=R1 [accessed: 30^th October 2010]

Neimat, T., Why IT Projects Fail, The PROJECT PERFECT White Paper Collection [Online] Available at:  http://www.projectperfect.com.au/downloads/Info/info_it_projects_fail.pdf   [accessed: 30^th October 2010]

Nell, D., Chip, W., (2008), Programming and problem solving with JAVA. Jones and Bartlet publishers, Ontario, [online] Available at: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10991&page=R1 [accessed: 30^th October 2010]

Soulie, J. (2007), Type Casting. cplusplus.com [Online] Available at: http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/typecasting/   [accessed: 30^th October 2010]

Warren, C., Lessons Google Can Learn From Wave’s Failure, Mashable [Online] Available at: http://mashable.com/2010/08/06/google-wave-lessons/  [accessed: 30^th October 2010]