Re: Ariane Failure

["Michael Feathers" <mfeathers@objectmentor.com>]

"Richard Riehle" <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message
news:3CA4B8E5.72909C9B@adaworks.com...
> rjk wrote:
>
> > What is XPers response to this? (I was going to ask a more specific
> > question, but I thought I'd leave it broad until an interesting question
is
> > found).
>
> The problem with Ariane V begins with Systems Engineering management.
> The decisions about what to do when an exception occurs were wrong, and
> not tested.    Although Design By Contract might have helped,  I doubt
that
> Eiffel would have been appropriate because of other issues related to
> Eiffel.   I like Eiffel, but don't consider it appropriate for a project
such
> as Ariane V.    The SPARK approach to Design By Contract (they don't
> call it that, but that is what it is)  could have worked well, especially
> since it was programmed in Ada.   By the way, the Ada code worked as
> it was directed to work, but it was given bad directions.


IIRC, there's also the issue of casting integers across sizes.  It is great
when you can hide representation and promote or demote its size as needed.


Michael Feathers
www.objectmentor.com