Good write up of security vulnerabilities in a useful web-based tool for Google Cloud that should be relatively simple. It wasn't as simple as the authors intended.
I got hooked by the stereotypical 1970s production and the decidedly untelegenic (but informative) introduction from Dick MacKinnon, but the whole thing is a fascinating view of interactive programming.
The command-line interface is consistent and minimal. It has the least amount of options possible while still being usable. We strive for sane defaults that fit our workflow, instead of offering configurability for every possible use case.
> That program, which he described as a “shell” around the computer’s whirring innards, gave inspiration—and a name—to an entire class of software tools, called command-line shells, that still lurk below the surface of modern operating systems.
I was at a private boarding school, aged 10 in 1985. They had a computer lab with ~20 BBC model B's and we were taught BASIC, how to load and run programs from tape, how to use this paint software I don't remember the name of. It was all solid stuff.
But the real draw was playing video games, which was only permitted on weekends. Hours and hours of Chuckie Egg, Cylon Attack, Stryker's Run, etc.
I've seen UTF-8 with a BOM while consuming data when integrating with strongly Windows-centric environments. Relatively uncommon, but does happen. And it is very annoying!