🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <368@boing.UUCP>, dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes:
> In article <39822@linus.UUCP> eachus@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Robert I. Eachus) writes:
> 
> It is not a good idea to put this stuff in any of the libraries and
> begin a precedent of tolerating software bugs.  We must strive for
> perfection in this operating system and associated applications or
> we will eventually wind up limited by our own short sightedness.
> 
	No, relying on bug free programs for correct system operation
	is just bad design.  Bugs exist.  Bugs come into existence when
	the OS changes.  Some bugs are created when two programs play
	together in some unexpected way.  Some bugs are created when two
	pieces of hardware interact in strange ways.  Some bugs even show
	up when the base machine is changed, ie new motherboard rev. If we 
	have relatively inexpensive ways of riding through error/bad 
	programming conditions they should be taken.  I would say that we 
	probably don't want to get into general argument checking, but simple, 
	fairly low rate of occurance calls can be checked: Open*/Close* 
	operations are always good candidates for checking.  People still find 
	bugs in VMS/Unix utilities in spite of the maturity/simplicity of at 	
	least Unix applications, so expecting more of the Amiga is unreasonable.
	Especially given the evolving nature of the Amiga and of course lack
	of memory protection, resource tracking, etc.

	We *should* all strive for perfection.  This being the real world
	though, when a program falls short of our ideal the machine doesn't 
	need to put up big BLINKING RED LIGHTS that a software error occured.  
	Bad press for the machine and silly if a few extra bytes spent doing
	some minimal checking could have prevented it.  I sometimes get the
	impression that people respect an IBM PC style crash more than 
	"Software Error - Task held" or "GURU meditation" if for no other
	reason than if the Amiga is smart enough to detect the condition
	they ask "why can't it fix it?".  Anways, that opinion is based on a 
	very limited sample set of non computer types who've used my Amiga here.

> Dale Luck     Boing, Inc. {cbmvax|oliveb|pyramid}|!amiga!boing!dale

					Rick Spanbauer
					SUNY/Stony Brook