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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,a83c46b54bacb7f6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Scott Ingram Subject: Re: JOB:Sr. SW Engineers Wanted-Fortune 500 Co Date: 2000/02/01 Message-ID: <389713ED.1ABD751B@silver.jhuapl.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 580411132 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <3894A823.92EC75D1@bondtechnologies.com> <874b7r$mj9$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: usenet@houston.jhuapl.edu X-Trace: houston.jhuapl.edu 949425134 18827 128.244.80.107 (1 Feb 2000 17:12:14 GMT) Organization: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD, USA Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Feb 2000 17:12:14 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-02-01T17:12:14+00:00 List-Id: Hyman Rosen wrote: > > OK, I'm being a smartass, but I am making a valid point. > Having its software written in Ada was not enough to keep > the Ariane 5 from going off-course and being blown up. In > the same way, having the software of a pacemaker written > in C is not enough to force it to blow up. I would assume > that pacemaker software undergoes thorough critical-systems > development and testing regardless of what language it's > written in. I spent my high school years working in Emergency Rooms and Intensive care units with cardiac monitoring devices that I later took a job as final test and calibration technician for. Testing and cal were fairly well defined, and after I finished with them they went to a QA inspector whose procedure differed slightly from mine. I used the lead set supplied with the device from the production line, and the QA inspector used a set that stayed at her bench. It was only after a device had failed QA 4 consecutive times and I went to watch her do QA that I realized where the problem lay. The soldering process for the lead set socket wasn't appropriate, and most, if not all of the monitoring devices were defective. Since this is a diagnostic tool used when a patient is already in extremis, chances of applying a harmful or deadly treatment were incredibly high. Every device of that model had to be called in for repair. Admittedly, using Ada won't solve all bugs and can't fix poor hardware design--but its usually one of the first tools I pull out because its so good at helping me not make mistakes in the first place. And I know from frighteningly real experience that testing can be flawed. -- Scott Ingram Sonar Processing and Analysis Laboratory Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory