From: Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid>
Subject: Re: How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking werenotturned off?
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:36:54 +0200
Date: 2011-03-17T15:36:54+02:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <8ueh3mF3rgU1@mid.individual.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4d8200cb$0$43837$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>
robin wrote:
> Simon Wright wrote in message ...
>> "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> writes:
>>
>>> But only if the error was hardware, which it wasn't.
>> No, and it wasn't bloody software either!!!
>
> I'm afraid that it was (software).
> Consider this: If just ONE unprotected overflow occurs,
> the mission is lost.
No. If the unprotected overflow occurs because of a hardware fault or
noise in one computer only, the mission continues with the other computer.
> Not a SINGLE unprotected conversion should have been included.
You are being rather dogmatic about this, Robin...
>> it was SYSTEM DESIGN!!! and
>> no amount of faffing about at the edges of software will ever fix that.
>
> The fact remains that in that real-time system,
> unprotected conversions were included.
After analysis of their possible causes and effects. In the Ariane 4.
> No-one experienced in real-time programming
> would have permitted those unprotected conversions.
Do you claim to know that the Ariane 4 software developers were
inexperienced?
The designers analysed the situation, decided what the software should
do in case of overflow at this point, and built the software
accordingly. When the overflow happened in the Ariane 501 launch the
software did exactly what the designers had decided it should do in this
case.
The argument about what the software should have done instead can be
endless, and perhaps useful for developing other programs, but does not
make the Ariane 4 software incorrect.
The ESA report makes several recommendations to increase robustness, for
example to activate only those software functions that are needed in
each phase of a mission. The Ariane 5 designers instead followed the
KISS principle "if it isn't broken, don't fix it". Unfortunately
"broken" is relative and depends on the environment. The software wasn't
broken for the Ariane 4, but was broken for the Ariane 5.
--
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
. @ .
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-03-17 13:36 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 79+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-03-14 15:49 How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were not turned off? Elias Salomão Helou Neto
2011-03-14 16:17 ` KK6GM
2011-03-14 19:25 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)
2011-03-14 19:28 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-14 20:28 ` KK6GM
2011-03-15 4:02 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)
2011-03-15 4:53 ` Shark8
2011-03-14 18:29 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-16 10:41 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were notturned off? robin
2011-03-16 15:16 ` Simon Wright
2011-03-17 11:48 ` robin
2011-03-16 16:58 ` Martin Krischik
2011-03-16 23:39 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking werenotturned off? robin
2011-03-17 18:48 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-18 12:06 ` Alex R. Mosteo
2011-03-18 21:15 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were not turned off? robin
2011-03-20 10:42 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-20 17:06 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking werenotturned off? Martin Krischik
2011-03-20 17:11 ` Martin Krischik
2011-03-20 18:10 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-21 13:24 ` Leif Roar Moldskred
2011-03-20 13:07 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were notturned off? Florian Weimer
2011-03-20 17:00 ` Martin Krischik
2011-03-20 20:17 ` Florian Weimer
2011-03-20 20:37 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-20 20:14 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-16 18:20 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-16 18:29 ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-16 18:55 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-16 19:40 ` KK6GM
2011-03-16 20:52 ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-16 21:02 ` KK6GM
2011-03-16 21:09 ` Shark8
2011-03-16 21:13 ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-16 21:35 ` Shark8
2011-03-16 22:27 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-16 21:04 ` Shark8
2011-03-16 21:10 ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-16 21:27 ` KK6GM
2011-03-16 21:31 ` Shark8
2011-03-16 22:32 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-18 21:14 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were not turned off? robin
2011-03-16 23:46 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking werenotturned off? robin
2011-03-17 0:26 ` Simon Wright
2011-03-17 11:01 ` Georg Bauhaus
2011-03-17 11:04 ` robin
2011-03-17 13:36 ` Niklas Holsti [this message]
2011-03-18 21:13 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were not turned off? robin
2011-03-19 10:12 ` Niklas Holsti
2011-03-17 22:51 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking werenotturned off? Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-18 21:13 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were not turned off? robin
2011-03-20 10:42 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-15 6:28 ` Stephen Leake
2011-03-15 17:32 ` Keith Thompson
2011-03-15 17:40 ` KK6GM
2011-03-15 19:44 ` Robert A Duff
2011-03-15 19:12 ` Florian Weimer
2011-03-15 19:45 ` KK6GM
2011-03-15 19:57 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-20 13:00 ` Florian Weimer
2011-03-20 20:13 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-15 19:42 ` John B. Matthews
2011-03-17 11:44 ` robin
2011-03-17 18:37 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-17 23:04 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were notturned off? robin
2011-03-18 15:55 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-17 21:37 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were not turned off? Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-16 10:33 ` robin
2011-03-16 15:08 ` Simon Wright
2011-03-17 12:39 ` robin
2011-03-17 13:41 ` Georg Bauhaus
2011-03-17 23:34 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were notturned off? robin
2011-03-18 12:57 ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-18 16:49 ` KK6GM
2011-03-18 17:18 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-19 17:55 ` Keith Thompson
2011-03-20 18:39 ` Robert A Duff
2011-03-17 18:43 ` How would Ariane 5 have behaved if overflow checking were not turned off? Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-17 20:58 ` Simon Wright
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