Re: Papers on the Ariane-5 crash and Design by Contract

[jonathan@jobstream.co.uk (Jonathan Egre')]

In article <dewar.859999362@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Joachim said
>
><<In the specific projects I'm working on it's even sensible that way. It
>is business programming with non-critical data, like sales personnel
>reports and similar stuff. The cost to get the bugs out of the system ...>>
>
>To me, such an approach is never sensible. Look at the Y2K mess -- a perfect
>example of the magnitude of trouble you can get into if you abandon an
>emphasis on quality .... Yes, in the short run, it might make sense for
>the supplier to cut corners, if all they are interested in is the bottom
>line in the near future, but in the long run, for both consumers and the
>vendors, this kind of short sightedness pays negative dividends.

I've heard at least one other person claim that if you add up the cost
of saving 2 bytes per date across millions of instances, multiply by the
much higher cost of data storage in the past, and allow for inflation,
then the amount saved is actually more than the cost of solving the year
2000 crisis.

How far do you think that an aircraft engineer would get with a proposal
to increase safety and efficiency at a cost of "only" 10% more weight?
That's the difference between an aircraft flying and an aircraft failing
to take off.  Sometimes you just have to work within a short-term budget,
and make the best choices you can under the circumstances.

I'm not saying that we should not strive for higher quality.  I am saying
that to blame the mistakes we see now on a lack of attention to quality
is not a fair assessment of the choices that were realistically available
at the time.
-- 
Jonathan Egre' at Jobstream Group plc in Cambridge, UK 
The above does not represent the opinions or policies of Jobstream Group plc