Re: No call for Ada

[chris <spamoff.danx@ntlworld.com>]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>>
>>I'm not sure if your saying that governments need to verify all software
>>that goes to market, sort of like the FDA approves medications
> 
> There are different ways. Don't you agree that the software which fault may
> lead to loss of human life shall be approved? For the rest it would be
> enough to require some level of liability for commercial software depending
> on its price and application area.

I sort of agree, however we all know any significant software will 
contain bugs no matter what you do so liability may not be the best way 
with respect to commercial software, unless it's in terms of negligance, 
for the foreseeable future.  Perhaps the licensing of software engineers 
is the way to go on this.  i.e. if the software engineer is licensed 
they meet certain standards they are fit to work on projects.  The 
problem is deciding who sets the criteria and who enforces it.

I wouldn't mind being licensed, infact it's probably one of the few ways 
you could make software without making it too risky for companies to 
develop it.  Lots of people won't like it though, especially programmers 
because everybody knows programming is a bit of witchcraft and art, that 
it's their god given right to code and it all just 'works'. ;)

>>What
>>your saying is like saying that the industry needs an unpenetrable
>>network firewall.  To your surprise, there is one!  Disconnect your
>>network from the Internet and then, your network is unpenetrable
>>from the Internet.  See how easy that was?
> 
> 
> Consider that recent attempts to introduce an internet-based voting system.
> Sooner or later it will come.

Like biometric ID cards in the UK.  The problem is the old line about 
theory and pratice.