Re: JOB:Sr. SW Engineers Wanted-Fortune 500 Co

[Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <t7g0vdq2x0.fsf@calumny.jyacc.com>,
  Hyman Rosen <hymie@prolifics.com> wrote:
> Hyman Rosen <hymie@prolifics.com> writes:
> > Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> writes:
> > > find it appalling that anyone would develop a product like a
> > > pacemaker, on which the life of a human being depends on its
> > > continuous reliable operation, in a language known to be as
> > > error-prone as C. This is not an opportunity for me to be
> OK, I'm being a smartass, but I am making a valid point.
> Having its software written in Ada was not enough to keep
> the Ariane 5 from going off-course and being blown up. In

That's a good point. Luckily, I never claimed any such thing. If someone
does, tell me and I'll jump in with you.

> the same way, having the software of a pacemaker written
> in C is not enough to force it to blow up. I would assume
> that pacemaker software undergoes thorough critical-systems
> development and testing regardless of what language it's
> written in.

No. But testing does not guarantee the total absence of bugs either
(another Arianne lesson). Thus it is not sufficient in my view to make
up for poor development tools with testing. By that logic it would be
perfectly OK for me to hand-machine aircraft parts with a hammer and
chisel, as long as they were all thoroughly tested.

--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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