Re: Critique of Ariane 5 paper (finally!)

[Bertrand Meyer <Bertrand.Meyer@eiffel.com>]

Samuel Mize wrote:
 
> > But to make the jump from sufficient to necessary is completely
> > without basis, and can only be regarded as advertising puffery.
> 
> Which appeared in a column in IEEE Computer magazine, positioning
> it deceptively as a technical item instead of an ad.

This is outrageous. The article in question suggested a technical
principle (Design by Contract) to avoid new occurrences
of a documented major disaster. It did not mention any
software product. IEEE Computer and other magazines
publish thousand of pages suggesting technical solutions
to problems -- often, in fact, advocating products
and companies. Is any argument for CORBA, or OLE, or UML, or
Unix, or Windows to be dismissed as as "deceptive",
an "ad" and not a "technical item"?

For example the June issue of IEEE Computer included a 6-page
eulogy of Java by its creator, James Gosling. Is this a
deceptive ad too? After all, unlike the Ariane paper, it does
talk throughout about its author's company (Sun) and products
(Solaris etc.) But if we barred technical advocacy, IEEE
Computer and other magazines would soon become rather boring
places. Fortunately I don't think that's going to happen.

The underlying issue is what we do to improve software
reliability, and that's not going to be resolved by 
gratuitous attacks.
 
-- 
Bertrand Meyer, President, ISE Inc.
ISE Building, 2nd floor, 270 Storke Road, Goleta CA 93117
805-685-1006, fax 805-685-6869, <Bertrand.Meyer@eiffel.com>
http://www.eiffel.com, with instructions for free download