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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-13 09:03:47 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: kaz@ashi.footprints.net (Kaz Kylheku) Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: Quality systems (Was: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died)) Date: 13 May 2003 09:03:46 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305010621.55e99deb@posting.google.com> <254c16a.0305011035.13133e8d@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305011727.5eae0222@posting.google.com> <17cd177c.0305072114.24f04783@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305090612.261d5a5c@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305091549.48b9c5d9@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.114.87.129 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1052841827 21351 127.0.0.1 (13 May 2003 16:03:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 13 May 2003 16:03:47 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63673 comp.object:63309 comp.lang.ada:37288 misc.misc:14132 Date: 2003-05-13T16:03:47+00:00 List-Id: "Anders Wirzenius" wrote in message news:... > "Dale Stanbrough" wrote in message news:dstanbro-DDA263.20492210052003@mec2.bigpond.net.au... > > soft-eng wrote: > > > > > But for how long can you keep on making the same type > > > of mistakes? > > > > Forever, if we examine software faults. What's your point? > > That people -shouldn't-? I would agree with that. That people > > can learn to be 100% accurate in everything they do? I don't > > think i'll agree on that. > > > > dale > > Exactly. > Isn't a good quality system a system which catches possible human mistakes? > > The more a process is dependent on human beings to be perfect, the more vulnerable the process is. A quality system is as much a > support for the performing staff as it is a support for the management. > > The weaker the quality system is the more it demands a management to be involved in the daily working details meaning less time to > work with long term organizational issues. > > Error catching as early as possible is a good co-worker to both the > programmer and his superior. This is true only if everything else remains constant. The only way it can remain constant is if you keep the intelligent, productive, high-level language exactly the way it is, but make the implementation very smart, so that it can perform a deep analysis and catch mistakes by inference. Once you start dumbing down the language with requirements for static declarations, then what you are doing is throwing away an entire class of programs, leaving a remainder that is much easier to check for errors. You are basically changing the rules: ``Gee, I can't win at chess, so why don't we reinterpret the configuration of the board as checkers, a dumber and easier game''. Now this would be acceptable if you could write all your software in the dumbed-down language---if none of the rejected programs were useful in your domain. But the problem is that this is rarely true. In fact, the programmer will work around the language to reclaim that discarded space. When the rules are changed to prevent mistakes, the advantage is not obvious. Closing all the roads would prevent car accidents and therefore save lives. Except that the economy would be destroyed, which would wreck lives---oh, but that's too deep of an intuition. Safety first!