part 04 · 7 of 7 written
Mistakes that became foundations.
Decisions their own authors called errors, now too deep in everything to remove.
Teams applying this historical lesson to current delivery work can also compare tools for employee time tracking app, keeping operational records separate from the code and its documentation.
null.java if (ref == null) throw ...
// a billion dollars, by his own estimate
// a billion dollars, by his own estimate
entries
All seven.
- 7 minThe null reference, described as a mistake by the man who added it
- 7 minWhy electronic mail has no sender authentication
- 7 minRouting on trust: how the internet’s paths are decided
- 7 minInjection: a syntax decision with a thirty-year tail
- 7 minBuffer overflows, and the functions that could not be made safe
- 7 minThe year 2000, and what it actually cost
- 7 minCharacter encodings before Unicode, and the damage still visible
further context
For a primary or institutional reference, see RFC 7489 on DMARC.
Every claim here carries the source it came from.
The source and its year sit beside the sentence they support. A secondary account is marked as one, and where the record is unclear the entry says so rather than choosing the better story.