Re: Ariane5 FAQ

[Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com>]

Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

> Hyman Rosen wrote:
>
>
>
> >We have to assume that the Ariane 5 folks were not
> >complete blithering idiots,

Bertrand Meyer published a controversial article suggesting
that, had they used design by contract ( a la Eiffel) this could
not have happened.  While I don't agree that Eiffel would have
been better for the job, a contract model such as that found in
SPARK might have been successful in detecting the design
error early on.

It is not the blithering idiots who make the kind of mistake
that  triggered the Ariane V event.   Rather, it is usually a
series of decisions, not well-managed or coordinated, by
competent engineers.   I am probably not the only person
who has seen perfectly good software turn to fecal matter
due to poor configuration management.

In the end, the Ariane V event was a failure of engineering
management, not of  individual engineers.  No amount of
DbC, more careful design, better languages,  whatever, can
compensate for incompetent engineering management.

Richard Riehle