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Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 17:35:31 -0400
From: Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>
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Subject: Re: Ariane5 FAQ
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Date: 2003-07-23T17:35:31-04:00
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Mike Silva wrote:
> So you are arguing that, lacking written documentation to the
> contrary, any piece of code should be assumed capable of handling all
> possible input values in a way that is appropriate to all possible
> systems in which the code is employed.  Tell me, honestly, would you
> fly in a rocket designed under such assumptions?

But we're not talking about "any-all". This was a combined
hardware and software module being moved from one rocket
version to the next.

> the Ariane-5 people had no legitimate reason to assume that what
 > the code did would also be right in the Ariane-5 system.

And yet they acted that way. That argues that they did have
a legitimate reason. Even though it turned out to be wrong
in retrospect. As I keep saying, there is a difference between
"no reason to assume it will work" and "reasons why it will
not work".