Re: Data shows Top 50 Software Vendors not using Ada

[world!srctran@decwrl.dec.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

>You missed my point entirely.  Most of your examples had to do with the loss
>of money - a small loss compared to human lives or a whole planet.
>DoD systems must be even more fault tolerant than most of the systems built by
>the rest of the world.  Greg, please name one system you know about that if it
>fails could cause the loss of life (on a large scale) or even the meltdown of
>the planet.

   Air traffic control systems route some of their real time information
over commercial phone lines (if you remember some of the stories from ATT's
Manhattan problem a while ago).  Conceivably we could lose a few planeloads
of people if enough information was lost.   If someone really studied this
problem, I bet you would find out that the number of civilian-potential
deaths from informaiton systems accidents surpasses the number of military
potential deaths in peacetime, and probably equivalent to potential deaths
in today's sanitary wartimes.
   Thus, I still argue that the defense world does not have sole claim to
the need to prevent death.  Also, I would argue that the death rate from
unemployment psychology due to loss of job due to some information
miscalculation is also relevant.
     Soldier's lives should be protected at all costs, except for bankrupting
the country they are defending, because civilian livelihoods and lives (i.e.
the people paying the taxes to protect the soldiers) are killed.

Greg

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 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178