Stop telling me I should be speaking Esperanto!


Every time there's a buffer overrun, everybody shakes their head 
and sighs "if only people didn't program in C and C++ this wouldn't 
be an issue."  It's obvious ... and, equally obviously, if only 
everybody spoke Esperanto, we'd all be able to understand each 
other.  Can we just return to reality here?  Today, virtually 
nobody writes system software (OSs, drivers, databases, web 
servers, browsers) in safe languages; perhaps, just like with 
Esperanto, there are other factors that mean the "obvious right 
answer" isn't actually right in practice.  What will actually 
cause things to change (or, if it's not going to change, what 
should we do instead)?  And since I'm cynical enough to question 
the original Esperantists' assumption that a world language would 
bring us noticeably closer to world peace, why should I believe 
that changing languages will bring us noticeably closer to 
"software security"?