Re: Ariane5 FAQ

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com>]

Hyman Rosen wrote:

> The entire point of your FAQ is political correctness.
> In this order, you are urgently campaigning that Ada,
> Ada programmers, and technical people have absolutely
> no blame in the Ariane 5 crash.

This is true, and the findings of the report emphsize this.  The failure 
was in the process that Arianespace set up, not in the work of any 
contractor, and certainly not in the work of any employee of those 
contractors.  The process that Arianespace set up delegated requirements 
to individual subcontracts, which is fine.  But there was no process for 
checking that changes in the subcontracts did not result in failure to 
test some requirements, or a final pre-launch validation that all 
requirements had been tested.

The scope of one of the subcontracts was reduced, and as a result 
certain tests that were part of the original test plan did not get 
performed.  However, Arianespace's project management process equated 
completion of all subcontracts with completion of all testing.  As 
became obvious, this was not a good idea.

 >                                  In order to do this
> you make unsubstantiated claims which are designed to
> appeal to the egos and biases of Ada programmers and
> other technical people.

This is not a very constructive comment.  Alexander Kopilovitch is not 
writing a technical report, but an FAQ.  It would be nice if those of us 
who have studied the disaster could trace every allegation in the FAQ to 
documentation.  But those references don't really belong in the FAQ, 
other than as a "to learn more" URL.

-- 

                                                        Robert I. Eachus

�In an ally, considerations of house, clan, planet, race are 
insignificant beside two prime questions, which are: 1. Can he shoot? 2. 
Will he aim at your enemy?� -- from the Laiden novels by Sharon Lee and 
Steve Miller.