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: 103376,63ceef1cf4561e32 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Pat Rogers" Subject: Re: Customer balks at Ada -- any hope? Date: 2000/07/26 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 651143119 References: <8l01s4$gnr$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8l2pqo$im7$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3974F7A1.E806B092@silver.jhuapl.edu> <8ln7q5$t1o$2@news.btv.ibm.com> <397F442E.E132EFDF@silver.jhuapl.edu> X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 X-Complaints-To: abuseswbell.net X-Trace: nnrp3.sbc.net 964646281 208.191.184.67 (Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:18:01 CDT) Organization: SBC Internet Services X-MSMail-Priority: Normal NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:18:01 CDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-07-26T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: "Scott Ingram" wrote in message news:397F442E.E132EFDF@silver.jhuapl.edu... > Dale Pontius wrote: > > > > In article <3974F7A1.E806B092@silver.jhuapl.edu>, > > Scott Ingram` writes: > > > wv12@my-deja.com put out some flame bait to which I responded: > > > > > >> C has been known to control big, expensive hardware. One such > > > > > > C has controlled big, expensive hardware...and people died. > > > > > Point of curiousity - can you expand on this? Tales of death > > due to software error are surprisingly uncommon, given what we > > seem to consider the poor general state of software development. > > > > Dale Pontius > > NOT speaking for IBM > > The device I was thinking of was a medical radiation generator for > the treatment of cancer. However, a reference that Ken Garlington > gave earlier on c.l.a. led me (eventually) to a report on the > Therac-25 which I believe is the machine that made it into urban > legend as the killing machine. I have not completed reading the > report yet, but I also have not discovered any incidents of morbidity > directly attributable to the massive radiation overdoses that some > patients were exposed to. A Google search on "therac 25" pops up > about 1050 links. Nancy Leveson's book Safeware indicates deaths were actually a result, but not in all cases. (She also states that the software was developed in assembly language.) -- Pat Rogers Consulting and Training in: http://www.classwide.com Deadline Schedulability Analysis progers@classwide.com Software Fault Tolerance (281)648-3165 Real-Time/OO Languages Adam ... does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant. Mark Twain