Re: Papers on the Ariane-5 crash and Design by Contract

[Ken Garlington <GarlingtonKE@lmtas.lmco.com>]

Robert I. Eachus wrote:
> 
>    To say that your paper is not trying to disparage Ada here is
> certainly highly creative.

By the way, this wasn't my point in my original post. My point was
that the suggestion that Design by Contract was not tightly coupled
to the Eiffel language is not supported by the paper. In fact, the
paper goes to great pains to imply that Eiffel is the only suitable
language to solve the Ariane 5 problem (contradicting its earlier
qualified statement that Ada was sufficient). Mr. Meyer reinforces
this in his later posts.

It reminds me of these annoying posts about various web sites: "I
just visited this great web site..." Of course, it's THEIR web
site they're promoting, but the writer wants to give off an air
of impartiality to impress the reader.

So, is this paper an impartial analysis of the Ariane 5 problem, or
an Eiffel sales pitch buried inside an impartial-sounding paper?
I would be more convinced of the former if, for example:

  (a) more of the criticisms I and others have expressed were
      addressed

  (b) the paper did not continuously mix the discussion of Eiffel
      (after all, the paper states Ada was sufficient) with the
      Ariane 5 specifics.

  (c) the paper had fewer appeals to authority at the end (always
      a red flag in any argument)

  (d) the paper indicated that the authors had some insight beyond
      just the final report (and I'm not convinced even that is
      demonstrated!). For example, who on the Ariane 5 team has
      been interviewed regarding the issues described in this paper?

However, I suspect that criticisms of this paper are falling on deaf
ears, so I would not expect it to change...

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