[ruby-talk:12691] Re: police warns you -- Perl is dangerous!!

On Wednesday 14 March 2001 15:40, Pete Kernan wrote:
> On 14 Mar 2001 11:46:35 -0800, Leo Razoumov <see_signature@127.0.0.1>
> wrote: +I just read this story on Slashdot
> +
> +http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/13/208259&mode=thread
> +
> +A teenager got a police record and is being labeled with a "killer
> profile" for +committing a sabtle Perl programming error.
> +Botton line: badly designed languages can _REALLY_ screw you up.
> +--Leo
> +
>
> that's an amusing article. i like both languages (perl and ruby), perhaps
> perl is more dangerous, maybe thats why so many people like it.
>
>   Pete

The tie-in of an error caused by mis-stating a perl expression to "police 
warm perl is dangerous' is amusing; the incident itself is _not_. 'They' 
(meaning authorities in the US) take threats of violence within schools (and 
especially when firearms are involved) very seriously these days due to an 
apparant increase in actual instances of the same. While these tragedies _do_ 
merit concern, _they_ never stop to think that _they_ and their policies of 
more 'protective', reactionary, and thus more intrusive government may be at 
the root cause.

And while this issue may be OT, strictly, for Ruby, it is very much 'on 
topic'  for those of us programming Ruby or any other language. Those who 
live outside the US in more repressive nations will think the student 
'fortunate'; at least he wasn't beaten, electrocuted, stunned, or in other 
ways physically harmed as a part of the interrogation process (we won't 
consider psychological damage here); we, in the US, expect these things to 
not happen, as we are 'protected' by our Constitution's amendments.

If, however, we continue to accept the 'little' erosions of private rights to 
continue, regarding these as 'acceptable cost' for and illusion of security, 
we may someday find stun guns, electric wires and rubber truncheons standard 
equipment in every interrogation room.

And, what does this have to do with freedom of speech?  A private school does 
have the right to institute and enforce rules protective of its interest upon 
students behavior within their domain, including its physical and virtual 
(the school's servers) property; outside their domain, however, these rules 
no longer matter IMO. As I understand it, the web site was hosted on a 
commercial (or private) server, but clearly one _not_ owned by the school 
itself. Within this context, the students and their behavior should _not_ IMO 
be under the schools dominion. 

Within the US we have a fine heritage of individual freedoms, protections of 
private rights and a healthy 'mistrust' of 'authority'; unfortunately today's 
schools, while teaching this heritage in the classroom tend towards 
contradicting it via example. No wonder our students may become confused, 
sometimes with violent results. At such a time when freedom of expression 
through speech becomes, as I fear it may, severely curtailed within these 
borders (US), expressions of dissent shall nonetheless continue, but in far 
less palatable forms.  

Regards,

Kent Starr
[e-mail]