Neither have bearing on passing passwords in the clear.<p>I've made mistakes passing credentials in the clear. I've made mistakes storing them in the clear. I've made mistakes passing them as md5 hashes. I've made mistakes storing them as md5 hashes. I've made mistakes passing them SSL'd and storing them as md5 hashes with a nonce. I've will make mistakes using bcrypt.<p>I mentor developers. It makes me nervous is not being able to go from A to F (in a good way). It also makes me nervous there are so many knowledge gaps along the way.