🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <45ereq$t6o@regina.seh.codem.com>, seh@seh.codem.com (Stephen
E. Halpin) wrote:

> Getting back to reality, Ive seen very complex systems built with no error
> detection capability, and when a problem occurs with a frequency of once a
> week, its a nightmare to debug.  If the application traps the error, and
> leaves behind a fairly detailed image of its state when the error occured,
> you can save literally weeks of debug time.

Amen.  My last job I was given 5.5 megabytes source code of mixed language
software to maintain solo.  It was a tossed-together mess, which is
another story.  What is important is that it was run by remote, computer
naive users, and crashed fairly often due to both unfound bugs and
unbulletproofed input.

The _only_ thing that made problem resolution possible was that all the
code was built with all possible checks turned on and all error reporting
turned on, including source code line numbers embedded in the running
code, so that the users could copy down cryptic, to them, error messages,
report them to me, and give me somewhere to start looking for problems.

In any _sufficiently_ large system, run time constraint checks and error
reporting should be considered mandatory, even in production systems.  Not
all large systems kill the operators as one symptom of bugs.  For those
that don't, fast problem resolution is almost always more important to the
users than is fastest possible execution.

With most computers sitting on desktops, most software is most of the time
sitting idle waiting for the next keypress or mouse click.  In that
environment, execution speed is rarely important within a factor of four
or so.

One of those wonderful questions: in DoD applications, is the Ada source
code shipped with the executables, for field repairs when the
Constraint_Error exception occurs?  <grin>

-- 
Xanthian.                  | "..want the consequences of what you want.." | 
Kent, the man from xanth.  |        Neil A. Maxwell, LDS Apostle          |
Kent Paul Dolan            ------------------------------------------------
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