* Re: A new name for software failure : the glitch
2012-08-10 12:42 ` Nasser M. Abbasi
@ 2012-08-10 13:56 ` Georg Bauhaus
2012-08-10 14:16 ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2012-08-11 23:19 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)
2012-08-11 0:30 ` Randy Brukardt
2012-08-11 19:22 ` Florian Weimer
2 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2012-08-10 13:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
On 10.08.12 14:42, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> On 8/4/2012 1:18 PM, francois_fabien@hotmail.com wrote:
>> In finance, software failure can be very expensive very fast.
>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-trading-mishap-cost-it-440-million/
>>
>>
>
> fyi;
>
> AdaCore issued statement on this error:
>
> August 07, 2012
>
> http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20120807006365/en/AdaCore/Knight-Capital-Group/high-frequency-trading
>
>
> some quotes
>
> "It's clear that Knight's software was deployed without adequate verification."
>
> "What is needed is a change in the way that such critical software
> is developed and deployed."
>
> "the aviation industry has demonstrated that safe, reliable real-time
> software is possible, practical, and necessary"
>
> May be this is a good chance for Ada to get into financial software, which
> is now dominated by weakly typed and much less robust languages.
Tricky. Neither Java nor OCaml can be called weakly typed
or not robust. APL implementations do not count as not robust
either, AFAIK. And, as the article mentions, it is not even clear
yet whether *any* formal verification software could have
prevented the effect;
from what I know, it is more likely an algorithmic error that might have
to do with "<=" and ">", not so much with type systems, or with other
qualities of programming languages.
AdaCore uses this opportunity to point out offerings that
are related to reliability and verification, but does not
specifically mention Ada.
Saying "Ada would have prevented" might turn out to be rather silly in
this case.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: A new name for software failure : the glitch
2012-08-10 13:56 ` Georg Bauhaus
@ 2012-08-10 14:16 ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2012-08-10 16:14 ` Georg Bauhaus
2012-08-11 23:19 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)
1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2012-08-10 14:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
On 8/10/2012 8:56 AM, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>
> Tricky. Neither Java nor OCaml can be called weakly typed
> or not robust. APL implementations do not count as not robust
> either, AFAIK.
Thanks, but I was thinking of high frequency trading software. I read that
mostly C++ is mainly used there. This is real-time, hundreds of
transactions in one second type of software. Yes, Java is strongly
typed also. I do not know anything myself about OCaml and
APL (did not even know that APL is still around).
>
> AdaCore uses this opportunity to point out offerings that
> are related to reliability and verification, but does not
> specifically mention Ada.
>
> Saying "Ada would have prevented" might turn out to be rather silly in
> this case.
>
yes.
--Nasser
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: A new name for software failure : the glitch
2012-08-10 14:16 ` Nasser M. Abbasi
@ 2012-08-10 16:14 ` Georg Bauhaus
0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2012-08-10 16:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
On 10.08.12 16:16, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> On 8/10/2012 8:56 AM, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>
>>
>> Tricky. Neither Java nor OCaml can be called weakly typed
>> or not robust. APL implementations do not count as not robust
>> either, AFAIK.
>
> Thanks, but I was thinking of high frequency trading software.
So was I.
> I read that
> mostly C++ is mainly used there.
Which layer? I'll venture a guess that e.g. the special
wiring between New York and Chicago will not include
any language's big run-time system.
According to Duncan Sands (AdaCore video), a french bank
is/was using Ada in some transaction layers.
> This is real-time, hundreds of
> transactions in one second type of software. Yes, Java is strongly
> typed also. I do not know anything myself about OCaml and
> APL (did not even know that APL is still around).
APL is so popular in financial business that Morgan Stanley
had allowed A+ to be made. Another dialect is specially made
for fast processing of series of data (q, earlier K),
and typically sold in the financial market. Yes, that's
probably not the I/O layer that effects trades.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: A new name for software failure : the glitch
2012-08-10 13:56 ` Georg Bauhaus
2012-08-10 14:16 ` Nasser M. Abbasi
@ 2012-08-11 23:19 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)
1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2012-08-11 23:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
Le Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:56:11 +0200, Georg Bauhaus
<rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de> a écrit:
> On 10.08.12 14:42, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>> On 8/4/2012 1:18 PM, francois_fabien@hotmail.com wrote:
>>> In finance, software failure can be very expensive very fast.
>>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-trading-mishap-cost-it-440-million/
>>>
>>>
>>
>> fyi;
>>
>> AdaCore issued statement on this error:
>>
>> August 07, 2012
>>
>> http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20120807006365/en/AdaCore/Knight-Capital-Group/high-frequency-trading
>>
>>
>> some quotes
>>
>> "It's clear that Knight's software was deployed without adequate
>> verification."
>>
>> "What is needed is a change in the way that such critical software
>> is developed and deployed."
>>
>> "the aviation industry has demonstrated that safe, reliable real-time
>> software is possible, practical, and necessary"
>>
>> May be this is a good chance for Ada to get into financial software,
>> which
>> is now dominated by weakly typed and much less robust languages.
>
> Tricky. Neither Java nor OCaml can be called weakly typed
> or not robust. APL implementations do not count as not robust
> either, AFAIK. And, as the article mentions, it is not even clear
> yet whether *any* formal verification software could have
> prevented the effect;
So the reason resides in specifications?
> from what I know, it is more likely an algorithmic error that might have
> to do with "<=" and ">"
You told either too much or not enough :-D
--
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: A new name for software failure : the glitch
2012-08-10 12:42 ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2012-08-10 13:56 ` Georg Bauhaus
@ 2012-08-11 0:30 ` Randy Brukardt
2012-08-11 19:22 ` Florian Weimer
2 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Randy Brukardt @ 2012-08-11 0:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
"Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> wrote in message
news:k02vjh$sd6$1@speranza.aioe.org...
> On 8/4/2012 1:18 PM, francois_fabien@hotmail.com wrote:
>> In finance, software failure can be very expensive very fast.
>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-trading-mishap-cost-it-440-million/
>>
>
> fyi;
>
> AdaCore issued statement on this error:
>
> August 07, 2012
>
> http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20120807006365/en/AdaCore/Knight-Capital-Group/high-frequency-trading
I thought it was interesting that barely 24 hours after issuing that
statement, AdaCore's e-mail broke, causing all kinds of mess for people
(like me) e-mailing them. Same sort of problem (probably didn't cost $440M,
though). A reminder that Ada doesn't solve everything.
Randy.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: A new name for software failure : the glitch
2012-08-10 12:42 ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2012-08-10 13:56 ` Georg Bauhaus
2012-08-11 0:30 ` Randy Brukardt
@ 2012-08-11 19:22 ` Florian Weimer
2012-08-11 21:25 ` jpwoodruff
2 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Florian Weimer @ 2012-08-11 19:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
* Nasser M. Abbasi:
> On 8/4/2012 1:18 PM, francois_fabien@hotmail.com wrote:
>> In finance, software failure can be very expensive very fast.
>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-trading-mishap-cost-it-440-million/
>>
>
> fyi;
>
> AdaCore issued statement on this error:
>
> August 07, 2012
>
> http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20120807006365/en/AdaCore/Knight-Capital-Group/high-frequency-trading
>
> some quotes
| Last week an error in some automated high-frequency trading software
| from Knight Capital Group caused the program to go seriously amok,
| and when the cyberdust cleared, the company was left holding the
| bill for almost a half-billion dollars to cover the erroneous
| trades.
There are now reports that it wasn't a software error, that is, the
software worked as specified.
The quality of typical Ada marketing material is atrocious.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: A new name for software failure : the glitch
2012-08-11 19:22 ` Florian Weimer
@ 2012-08-11 21:25 ` jpwoodruff
0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: jpwoodruff @ 2012-08-11 21:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Saturday, August 11, 2012 1:22:15 PM UTC-6, Florian Weimer wrote:
<...>
> There are now reports that it wasn't a software error, that is, the
>
> software worked as specified.
>
>
Let me advance an hypothesis about the "glitch".
We are told that the trading software executed numerous "buy" orders,
and the losses accrued when the company needed to unwind those positions.
Suppose that the database representing the software's state had become
corrupted, conceivably showing zero holdings, at the start of business
on the day.
The logic of the program might credibly buy lots of securities in
order to create the positions that the logic *correctly* determined
were required.
Then when the database is corrected to show the true positions, the
logic would demand quick dumping of the redundant purchases.
By this hypothesis the code logic is not flawed; a configuration
error cost 0.4e9 dollars.
John
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread