RE: Nuclear Reactors & Blackout

["Robert C. Leif" <rleif@rleif.com>]

I instigated one of the few medical software projects in Ada
(www.newportinstruments.com Ada_Med section see the last paper, 
 
"The development of software in the Ada language for a midrange hematology
analyzer"). Much to my joy, the software was completed before the hardware.
Having been in this industry, I should note that the greatest virtue of the
use of Ada is it results in the resignations of the C++ hackers.

I am starting a new instrument in Ada. The C++ code that I have received
from the vendors should NEVER be used in a medical device. The commercial
software for controller board for my servomotor has the interesting feature
that the board can apply the full 10 volts to the servo-amplifier at
startup. This results in the rotor reaching top speed, ca. 3,000 rpm, with a
9 kilogram rotor with no simple means to slowly decelerate it. This is
enough to make one a true believer in Ada!

Bob Leif

Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
Email rleif@rleif.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Dmytry Lavrov [mailto:m31415@mail.ru] 
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2003 7:10 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Nuclear Reactors & Blackout

It's possible that blackout caused by software bug?(or it's surely by
poor hardware devlopment?)
Strange,but in europe and russia there is no so big blackouts(my friend
had 360v in wallplugs,but it was locally caused by mistake with cables
;-).

About Nuclear Plant:
Whats,nuclear plant aren't connected with special buffer device and
there is really some tanger for plant????????

I'm more worry about another things:
If medical software are as buggy as USA power network(if not more
buggest)i.e. one patient die on one system per 10 years,one per 3 day if
we have 1000 patients,it's really bad.
Medical soft are sometimes coded in C++(there was "first man killed by
hackes " story in 1999 (or 2000?). How many patients killed by
programmer...or more precisely,by manager that choose C++ for it)