Re: Software Quality in Science

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

> On 2/10/2010 9:29 AM, Stephen Leake wrote:
>> The programmers still have to specify the right switches, and pay
>> attention to the results, and know how to fix them, which is a
>> political/management/skill issue, not a language design issue.
>
> The same is true for Ada, at least as implemented in GNAT.

Yes.  Seat belts only work if you buckle them.

Don't put pennies in your fuse box.

>> I know from personal experience that there is a satellite about to be
>> launched who's control code has many remaining C warnings. Sigh.
>
> Well, isn't that part of "pay attention to the results"?
> Not all warnings represent things that need to be fixed.

Yes, but I think you need a way to systematically mark
the ones that don't need to be fixed.  That's what
pragma Warnings(Off) is for.  At AdaCore, we insist
on warning-free builds for out Ada code, which requires
using that pragma sometimes.

- Bob