Re: C.A.R. Hoare on liability

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

I'm confused about where this is going. Are we talking about creating some
sort of "User Selectable Speed Option" in an application that allows the
user to turn off runtime checks? (Never seen that.) In which case, if the
"customer" doesn't want it, then you don't put one of those in. Or is the
notion that the "customer" wants the program image built with all runtime
checks enabled - implying that the compiler should never allow them to be
turned off?

If it is the latter, it seems intuitively obvious to even the most casual
observer that unless 100% of all customers everywhere are *insisting* on
full runtime checking (Never had one who went beyond "It needs to work all
the time...") that a developer needs to have the option of turning the
checks off for whatever percentage of the customers out there want to insist
that you do so.

So maybe I don't get where C.A.R. Hoare is going with this - you want to be
"customer driven"? Or is it more important that you build "good" software -
which *can* be done with runtime checks turned off when necessary? (Surely,
he can't be convinced that it is *never* necessary to turn off runtime
checks, can he?)

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


"Wes Groleau" <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:3D10C557.11C9DBC2@despammed.com...
>
> How about:
>
>    We know how stupid it would be to turn them off,
>    and we don't want to risk having them turned off
>    by the inevitable idiot that will slip past
>    even the best employment screening.
>
> or
>
>    _We_ understand, but we don't want to take the
>    chance that _management_ will order them turned
>    off under pressure from _our_ customer to squeeze
>    one more millisecond out of the cycle time.