Null references (oh no, not again!)

[Daniel Keep]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Daniel Keep wrote:
>>> * Accessing arrays out-of-bounds
>>> * Dereferencing null pointers
>>> * Integer overflow
>>> * Accessing uninitialized variables
>>>
>>> 50% of the bugs in Unreal can be traced to these problems!
>>
>> Tim Sweeny isn't an amateur; he's responsible, at least in part, for one
>> of the most commercially successful game engines ever.  I figure if even
>> he has trouble with these things, it's worth trying to fix them.
>>
>> Note that D already solves #1 and #4, LDC could give us #3... that just
>> leaves #2.  :D
> 
> 1 and 4 are pernicious, memory corrupting, hard to find problems. 2 is
> easy to find, does not corrupt memory. It isn't even in the same
> continent as 1 and 4 are.
> 
> 3 is a problem, but fortunately it tends to be rare.

The point was that these were identified as being responsible for the
majority of the bugs in a large, real-world code base.  Clearly #2 and
#3 are common enough and cause enough issues to have made the list.

  -- Daniel