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It’s the engineering definition of “works”: if a solution merely mitigates the frequency or severity of a problem, but does not completely solve it in all cases, obviously the solution is useless and no better than doing nothing at all. Only the platonically ideal solution has any value at all.

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What are you talking about? It's the engineering definition of "works" because engineers live in the real world and incorporate economic factors into their decision making to make something that works better under real-world conditions. If a solution merely mitigates the frequency or severity of a problem, the solution is obviously not better than doing nothing at all, since you just admitted it mitigates the severity or frequency of a problem. Would you rather have 100 0-days or one? Would you rather have a high-impact 0-day or a low-impact one?

You're kidding? That's opposite to the spirit of engineering.

Perhaps, but many engineers have personalities that are in conflict with what you’re calling the spirit of engineering. Binary thinking is a too-common thing.

> Binary thinking is a too-common thing.

It's engineering after all, isn't it?

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