🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DG8y40.BMz@world.std.com>,
Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
>In article <45cj8d$red@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>,
>Mike Rubenstein <miker3@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>	Finally, it is absurd to make elaborate security checks on debugging 
>>	runs, when no trust is put in the results, and then remove them in 
>>	production runs, when an erroneous result could be expensive or 
>>	disasterous.  What would we think of a sailing enthusiast who wears 
>>	his life-jacket when training on dry land but takes it off as soon as 
>>	he goes to sea>
>>
>>From C, A, R, Hoare in "Hints on programming language design" in 
>
>The analogy is bogus, IMHO.  Constraint checks don't save lives in the
>same way as life jackets.  If the program gets Constraint_Error, what is
>the pilot of the airplane supposed to do?!

Depending on which program fails (and when the failure is detected),
perhaps:  land the old-fashioned way, instead of relying on a (failing)
computer-controlled landing system.  Or reset the computer.  Or not
take off in the first place.

Computer errors have KILLED people.  People very often rely completely
on the output of a program, in situations where a graceful shutdown is
vastly preferable to wrong output.  Cars, trains, and airplanes,
medical instruments, chemical plants and nuclear reactors, and stock
trading programs spring to mind.

-- Rich Miller (rmiller@wolfenet.com)