Re: if statements

["Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org>]

"Marin David Condic" <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote in message
news:3A0ABE18.24CACAFB@acm.org...
: Robert Dewar wrote:
:
: > If there is one thing in the Ada world that one expects it is
: > to get away from th idea that the MOST important thing about
: > code is that "it WORKS". Ada is about building reliable,
: > maintainable software, and the fact that it works is necessary
: > but no where *near* sufficient.
:
: I'd agree with the "Necessary/Not-Sufficient" part of this statement,
: but to say that "It Works" is not the MOST important thing, I think is a
: mistake. There are a lot of important qualities I excpect from my
: pick-up truck. If I go out front, stick the key in it and it doesn't
: start, then there isn't much point in having it take up all that space
: in my driveway that could be occupied by nice, useful, air.

What if your choice was

(a) Occasionally doesn't work (i.e. doesn't start on cold days)
(b) Works (starts) every time, but occasionally the tires fail, you flip
over and die?

: "Works" is
: the only excuse for having bothered to build it at all. Along the way,
: we probably add things like "Looks Sharp", "Safe To Operate", "More
: Power (argh! argh! argh!)" "Hold A Ton Of Bricks" as other valuable and
: important requirements, but take away any of those things and having the
: truck might still be justifiable.
:
: I've seen lots of *REAL CRAP* software that had the quality of "Works"
: and found it could still be profitable to use it. I've picked up
: unbelievably (well, maybe believably) bad C code that reliably performed
: some function and incorporated it into a product with the eye towards
: freezing it there, never to be touched again - under penalty of law.
: Should the programmer be spanked? Yup. Real hard and real often. "Bad
: Programmer! No Cookie!" But the quality of "Works" was still there.
:
: MDC
: --
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: Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/
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