Re: Faulty languages and Liability

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Suppose the case goes like this:

You purchased software that failed in some way and caused you harm.

You discover that the reason for that failure (and your subsequent damage)
was that the program had a careless and unchecked array reference that
allowed an index to go out of bounds.

You argue in court that array index out of bounds errors are classic errors
discussed in all forms of computer science textbooks and that they are so
well known and infamous that most modern programming languages automatically
include runtime checks in them to catch this kind of error. Since the error
type is so well known and so obviously a problem, one would expect that a
*competent* programmer and a *responsible* company would have exercised due
dilligence and either a) used a language that checked for this common and
well publicized risk or b) maintained coding standards that would have
insured that all array references were manually bounds checked if the
language didn't provide for it.

Sounds to me like a case that might be made. In the same way that we would
hold a company liable for constructing a catwalk without guardrails, we
could hold a company liable for constructing software without array bounds
checks. How is this different? All the same arguments made against bounds
checks could be applied to guard rails. (Inefficient, costs too much, not
necessary, etc.) I doubt the courts would dictate the tools to use to build
the guard rails, but they might still insist on you're putting them up.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:3D0E461A.8050207@mail.com...
>
> > So, given the well-known falible nature of human programmers, if one
> > has the choice between well-known tools which perform many such checks
> > automatically, and tools which do not perform such checks
> > automatically, and if a falible programmer then uses tools of the
> > second type which contribute to a major software failure, has due
> > diligence been used?
>
> Perhaps not in hiring that programmer. The tools in question are not
> equivalent in other aspects than safety, which is why the safe ones
> are not always chosen.
>