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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d901a50a5adfec3c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Richard D Riehle Subject: Re: Fortran or Ada? Date: 1998/09/24 Message-ID: <6uc6st$gd4@dfw-ixnews8.ix.netcom.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 394208317 References: <36068E73.F0398C54@meca.polymtl.ca> <6uan3f$7qe$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> Organization: ICGNetcom X-NETCOM-Date: Wed Sep 23 8:22:37 PM CDT 1998 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-09-23T20:22:37-05:00 List-Id: In article , eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) wrote: in response the the Ariane V criticism, > Actually the fact that it was written in Ada did help find the >potential problem. [ ... snip, snip, snip ... ] > So the real problem was that the Ariane 5 was flying with software >whose built in safety limits were set for the Ariane 4. [ ... snip, snip, snip ... ] > Remember this the next time someone tells you how wonderful >software reuse is. Software reuse is like taking drugs. If your doctor prescribes a medication that will help make you well and if the pharmacist fills the prescription properly, and if you have been assessed as having no contraindicated conditions or conflicting medications, there is a low probability of failure. Any error in this process could cause a total system and potential run-time fault. Death might ensue. If one uses a contraindicated software component, whether because of specification error, diagnostic error, or programming error, the result can be the same. If I recall the discussion of this issue correctly, in the case of Ariane V, the wrong component was selected and used for the program. Richard Riehle richard@adaworks.com http://www.adaworks.com