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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,54889de51045a215 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-10-22 13:24:10 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!attbi_s51.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3F96E719.3020701@comcast.net> From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: += in ada References: <3F929FC8.9070901@noplace.com> <3F952DDD.6000501@noplace.com> <3F95475C.2010004@comcast.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.34.139.183 X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-Trace: attbi_s51 1066854250 24.34.139.183 (Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:24:10 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:24:10 GMT Organization: Comcast Online Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:24:10 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:1468 Date: 2003-10-22T20:24:10+00:00 List-Id: Vinzent 'Gadget' Hoefler wrote: > Well, that doesn't really matter. The C zealots - at least the ones I > know - claim one can write code with zero bugs in C when one is > careful enough. > > Well, one way or another, they're right, too. :-> Someday, I'll meet a C programmer that good. But I am not holding my breath. A long time ago when I was at Stratus, we looked at the cost of "bug-free" code. The first conclusion was that it was possible to improve code with less than one bug per 10,000 lines or so to the point where there were no known bugs and there was an expectation that there were no unknown bugs. Code with about one known bug per 1000 lines was problematical. There was no easy was to determine whether there was a way to remove all the bugs, including latent bugs, or if you were better starting over. Stratus had a lot of PL/I code that was significantly better than the one bug per thousand lines criteria, and some that was worse, so we tended to use that number when deciding whether to upgrade for the next OS version or rewrite. Most of the C code we had was closer to one known bug per 100 lines. Fortunately most of it was in small drivers. -- Robert I. Eachus "Quality is the Buddha. Quality is scientific reality. Quality is the goal of Art. It remains to work these concepts into a practical, down-to-earth context, and for this there is nothing more practical or down-to-earth than what I have been talking about all along...the repair of an old motorcycle." -- from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig