Barricade Your Program to Contain the Damage Caused by Errors
Barricades are a damage-containment strategy. The reason is similar to that for having isolated compartments in the hull of a ship. If the ship runs into an iceberg and pops open the hull, that compartment is shut off and the rest of the ship isn't affected. They are also similar to firewalls in a building. A building's firewalls prevent fire from spreading from one part of a building to another part. (Barricades used to be called "firewalls," but the term "firewall" now commonly refers to blocking hostile network traffic.)
One way to barricade for defensive programming purposes is to designate certain interfaces as boundaries to "safe" areas. Check data crossing the boundaries of a ...
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