Foreword

Software is easy to criticize and hard to do. The bigger the software, the more that is true. It is thus like speech—the more you say, the easier it is for the reader to find something to criticize, and the more likely the critic will get it wrong. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it is wit that is the soul of brevity.

And, indeed, our software is nothing if not loquacious, slang-riven, ill-bred, bloated, and raw. Is it any wonder that software is as prone to misinterpretation as is our language, any wonder that our software, like our language, can be “twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools?” No, it is not, but, as with language, everything we collectively are now depends on software. Software is so very essential that it is unlikely ...

Get Software Security: Building Security In now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.