Re: Ariane 5 failure

[Byron Kauffman <KauffmanBB@lmtas.lmco.com>]

A. Grant wrote:
> 
> In article <32492E5C.562@lmtas.lmco.com> Byron Kauffman <KauffmanBB@lmtas.lmco.com> writes:
> >Several EXTREMELY competent and experienced engineers who actually have
> >written flight-control software have patiently, and in some cases
> >(though I can't blame them) impatiently attempted to explain the
> >situation - that this was a bad design/management decision combined with
> >a fatal oversight in testing - to this poor student, but alas, to no
> >avail.
> 
> Robin is not a student.  He is a senior lecturer at the Royal
> Melbourne Institute of Technology, a highly reputable institution.

A. -

Thank you for confirming my long-held theory that those who inhabit the
ivory towers
of engineering/CS academia should spend 2 of every 5 years working at a
real job out 
in the real world. My intent is not to slam professors who are in touch
with reality, 
of course (e.g., Feldman, Dewar, et al), but the idealistic theoretical
side often
is a far cry from the practical, just-get-it-done world we have to deal
with once
we're out of school.


I just KNOW there's a good Dilbert strip here somewhere...