Re: Gnat, tasking, Vista

["Phaedrus" <phaedrusalt@hotmail.com>]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3170 bytes --]

> This is a very common (and unfortunate) line of thinking: "I prefer bugs 
> that I know rather than (fewer) bugs that I don't know".

Nothing unfortunate about it.  There are multiple paths to success, and 
sometimes the path you know leads you through the mud.  Nasty, yes, but far 
better (From a "staying alive" point of view) than the path you don't know 
which could lead you along a nasty cliff, and possibly over!  Try rephrasing 
this to "When they don't keep me from delivering a product on time, I prefer 
the bugs I know to the bugs that might keep me from delivering and getting 
paid".  Now, see which side of the argument makes more sense.  If the bugs 
that I know keep me from delivering, or add significant cost/time to the 
development project, then I may take the leap.  Or, if I can spare the 
manpower to carefully try the new stuff under controlled conditions, then 
sure.  For example, Vista is the latest and greatest piece of Windows 
software.  Want to bet your development schedule on it's performance?

> Why did I climb on my soapbox? Because I see constantly people asserting 
> the risk of making a change, without asserting the risk of *not* making 
> the change.
>
> Note that most of the free software community takes the opposite view 
> (always use the latest version) and it does not work so bad...

Professional software development is all about managing risk.  For hobbyists 
(and some academics) it's fine to assume the unknown risk that accompanies 
the "latest and greatest" release, but keep in mind that the rest of us have 
to keep our customers satisfied by understanding the cost/benefit ratio of 
these kinds of decisions.

Brian

"Jean-Pierre Rosen" <rosen@adalog.fr> wrote in message 
news:pf64nf.bso.ln@hunter.axlog.fr...
> tmoran@acm.org a �crit :
>> These are old programs that (except for a new program to test for this
>> problem) were compiled some time ago with 3.15p  I hate to shake the
>> dust off the source code of working programs and recompile new versions
>> hoping that the old bug will be fixed and no new ones will appear -
>> though I realize I may have to do just that.
> This is a very common (and unfortunate) line of thinking: "I prefer bugs 
> that I know rather than (fewer) bugs that I don't know".
>
> Although there is some sense in it, this is just pushing too far. Be 
> assured that *lots* of bugs have been fixed since 3.15p, and if new ones 
> have been introduced, they are certainly in very complicated and unlikely 
> cases, since the latest versions of Gnat are routinely used for demanding 
> and critical software - or you can have bugs in the recent 2005 features, 
> but you are certainly not using them.
>
> Why did I climb on my soapbox? Because I see constantly people asserting 
> the risk of making a change, without asserting the risk of *not* making 
> the change.
>
> Note that most of the free software community takes the opposite view 
> (always use the latest version) and it does not work so bad...
> -- 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>            J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
> Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr