I just went and read that famous column.

The section

The wrong way to use cookies, therefore, is to have a login form, and on successful login, send out a cookie that lasts until year 2003 to that browser. That's bad.

Has a little less impact now that it is 2003.
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“Every bit of code is either naturally related to the problem at hand, or else it's an accidental side effect of the fact that you happened to solve the problem using a digital computer.”
M-J D