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-Thread: 103376,382fcf8feeefdd50 X-Google-Thread: f4fd2,9019ec15d661ad71 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,gidf4fd2,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local02.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.telenor.com!news.telenor.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:39:27 -0500 Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:39:31 +0200 Subject: Re: computer language used to program Mars Lander From: "John Thingstad" Organization: private Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=iso-8859-15 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.lisp References: <185ee7f9-9d4f-4f49-8dbe-6b623b8a8223@c58g2000hsc.googlegroups.com> <887fc0a7-0a5a-4d2e-a9ea-eb9e32d6a818@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com> <807ef880-b2ac-4ac6-877c-21274e8ff4ab@d77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com> <26ec19b4-09fc-405b-a188-57b6ee5ca1a3@k36g2000pri.googlegroups.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: User-Agent: Opera Mail/9.51 (Win32) X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 080723-1, 23.07.2008), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-JhmRWZO/B1I9UIM6F0kBLIN1tZc7D8THk25lgpguELyU89ZS88KQr8w+946ipWg9qaCuwpOE6+u3EbL!s7WnTlgPC7zJ03WxSYtn5dhbo9wBmRYyxKKh15n1bVJvrUafyoYq+bzFlSq+aWqVW84b2qCx0Zr4!XHE= X-Complaints-To: news-abuse@telenor.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: news-abuse@telenor.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.39 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:7029 comp.lang.lisp:30616 Date: 2008-07-24T09:39:31+02:00 List-Id: P� Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:59:11 +0200, skrev jhc0033@gmail.com : > On Jul 23, 7:43 am, Michael Oswald wrote: >> I mean, I work in the space >> business (although not directly on on-board software but rather mission >> control software and testing equipment) but I haven't heard of Lisp >> usage. Would definitely be a 'nice to know' for me. > > Probably because they weren't too successful. I personally think Lisp > is super-cool, but inappropriate for space (or any reliability- > sensitive work). > > If I remember correctly, when they used Lisp in the probe, there was a > bug and they used Lisp's live patching and interactive debugging to > fix it, so they only missed their target by a quadrillion miles > instead of missing it by a gazillion miles. > > On the other hand, the bug wouldn't have happened in the first place, > if they used a good static language. I'll let someone who knows better > fill in the details (that's why I added comp.lang.lisp to the groups) > > Happy space exploration and exploitation! Mathematically verify it with ACL2! Way better than silly type checking. Check that theprogram does what the spec sais. (Which still only proves that it does what you say, not what you men.)) -------------- John Thingstad