On software quality and engineering
Tomasz Ciolek
tmc at dreamcraft.com.au
Sat Nov 2 10:33:42 EST 2002
Brad,
> A concept that has been missed in all of this is that all things are designed
> to meet acceptable risk. The Pinto example is where they mis-defined what
> level of risk was acceptable.
[SNIP LOTS]
I think that you raised an important point, with regard to engineering
as a whole. I agree that complex system will fail. Howevere there
appears to be a very major difference in the culture of engineering
material objects and software.
That difference appears to be this:
When in the physical world, a particular wiget A is designed, it carries with it a set of specifications that say "it was designed to operate in such and such conditions under such and such a minimum and maximum loads, etc... " and has some safety margins built in. In most cases of software desing I am yet to see doco on a module that states that: "this module implements function X, it has these input ranges, these output ranges and produces this error otherwise".
regards
Tomasz Ciolek
--
Tomasz M. Ciolek *
* Everything falls under the law of change;
<tmc at dreamcraft.com.au> * Like a dream, a phantom, a bubble, a shadow,
<tmc at goldweb.com.au> * like dew of flash of lightning.
* You should contemplate like this.
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