From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: ffc1e,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gidffc1e,public X-Google-Thread: 107d55,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gid107d55,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,5da92b52f6784b63 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public From: Alexander Anderson Subject: Re: Papers on the Ariane-5 crash and Design by Contract Date: 1997/03/31 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 229679093 Distribution: world X-NNTP-Posting-Host: almide.demon.co.uk References: <858728022snz@transcontech.co.uk> Organization: ALMA Services Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.programming.threads,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.java.tech Date: 1997-03-31T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <333FD855.2781E494@digicomp.com>, Jan Galkowski writes >But the problem is, unfortunately, many people who need to make a choice >between taking a strong stand in favor of correctness and possibly putting >their jobs on the line and just keeping quiet, doing what they are told, will >opt for the latter. This makes the job of the relative few who do want >code to be right very much more difficult: Management says "How come >you're the only one objecting...." > >I don't mean to imply what you say isn't valid: It is. It's just the >world of aerospace and military contracting is more complicated than that. Now, this sounds more like the ring of truth. What kind of pressures _were_ there on the Ariane 5 project? -------- Talking of Eiffel and Java (this title is cross posted to clj.programmer), it also appears, to me at any rate, that "Contract" -- If you present exactly _this_ I will do precicely _that_ with it -- is *fundamental* to the construction of Object Technology. It's always irked me, that in C++ and Java, this is left outside the language, to be said in the documentation. Naturally, this happens only at the best of times. For Java, we're lucky; someone included a javadoc. As a student in '96, doing my final year project, it drove me absolutely barmy wondering what we, as users of AWT (Abstract Windowing Toolkit), were *required* to do in order to get something to work: http://www.almide.demon.co.uk/html/Conio/Project/jam_023.html I note, wryly, that there are still "NullPointerException???" letters regularly appearing in clj*, mostly revolving around AWT. On reading "Object Oriented Software Construction", by Bertrand Meyer, ISBN 0-13-629031-0, (the older 1988 version) I realise that the ability to specify the contract in the code, explicitly checking it at run time, is a necessary, fundamental, ingredient for Object-Oriented languages. Heady stuff, that book. Sandy /* -- // Alexander Anderson // Home Fone +44 (0) 171-794-4543 // London, UK http://www.almide.demon.co.uk/ */