From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,7c5ef9815e469442 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1993-03-19 00:41:07 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: sparky!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!darwin.sura.net!udel!gvls1!lonjers From: lonjers@prc.unisys.com (Jim Lonjers) Subject: Re: Quote for the Day Message-ID: <1993Mar19.082937.28540@VFL.Paramax.COM> Sender: news@VFL.Paramax.COM (IEE news user) Nntp-Posting-Host: arbor Organization: Paoli Research Center - Paoli, PA References: <1993Mar18.211520.17097@scf.loral.com> <1993Mar18.221819.16340@VFL.Paramax.COM> <1993Mar18.195042.16302@sei.cmu.edu> Distribution: comp Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 08:29:37 GMT Date: 1993-03-19T08:29:37+00:00 List-Id: [Hi, Tim, how're tricks? The band playing a lot?] I think something positive can come of this discussion. When the phone system was designed, it was not meant to be a fail-safe, life-critical system as are most military systems. (No, I do not want to discuss whether military systems are meeting these goals -- that would not be constructive). The design principles that still live in the phone system is that it is basically a human system: If the call fails to go through, people will simply try again. It doesn't happen much any more, but it hasn't been too long when not getting a dial tone was reasonably common. You simply hung up and picked up the phone. A circuit was probably cleared up in the mean time. The steelman requirements address a different sort of problem. The fact that AT&T used C for a large application that has some similarity to some military systems is an interesting note, but does not conflict with the view (at that time) that C would not meet the Steelman requirements.