Re: Ariane5 FAQ

[snarflemike@yahoo.com (Mike Silva)]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:<AY0Ta.14787$0F4.7550@nwrdny02.gnilink.net>...
> Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
> > Well, one way or another - it did. It did exactly what is was supposed
> > to do.
> 
> No matter how many times people on this newsgroup repeat this,
> it will not become true. The code was written on the assumption
> that a certain parameter would never reach a particular value.
> Its behavior under the contrary assumption was left unspecified.
> It certainly did not do "what it was supposed to do" once the
> assumption was violated. The system pretended that a hardware
> error had happened.

No matter how many times you repeat this, it will not become true. 
The code was written to handle every possible value of the parameter
properly.  Why you refuse to acknowledge this is a mystery.  The only
problem was the the proper handling of the parameter, over a certain
range of values, for the Ariane 4 was not the proper handling of the
parameter for Ariane 5.

As yet another analogy (YAA?), consider a piston engine controller
designed for an engine with a redline of 5000 RPM, and assume the
controller has been designed to shut down the engine when 5000 RPM is
exceeded.  Put this controller on an engine with a redline of 8000 RPM
because "there's no reason not to think it will work" and watch what
happens in normal operation of that engine.  And then tell me it's the
fault of the engine controller software.

BTW, I don't know how software can "pretend" something.  The software
simply implemented the actions that the designers determined were
correct for that design.  Are you suggesting that the software really
knew, down deep in its heart of hearts, that there was no hardware
failure?