🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <45gpu2$h2e@ratty.wolfe.net>, rmiller@WOLFENET.COM (Rich Miller) writes:
|> In article <DG8y40.BMz@world.std.com>,
|> Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
|> >
|> >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.

Exactly, if the program crashes without the safety checks or it dies
with a message with the checks there isn't that much difference.  The
big difference is when the program keeps on running without the checks
but is now processing garbage data (say via a bad pointer).  A graceful
shutdown is much prefered.
-- 

- Bill Seurer     ID Tools and Compiler Development      IBM Rochester, MN
  Business: BillSeurer@vnet.ibm.com               Home: BillSeurer@aol.com