Re: Catastrophic compiler errors

Joachim Durchholz <joachim_d@gmx.de>
16 Apr 2002 00:51:46 -0400

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Re: Catastrophic compiler errors shankarunni@earthlink.net (Shankar Unni) (2002-04-13)
Re: Catastrophic compiler errors joachim_d@gmx.de (Joachim Durchholz) (2002-04-16)
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From: Joachim Durchholz <joachim_d@gmx.de>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 16 Apr 2002 00:51:46 -0400
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 02-04-035 02-04-058 02-04-062 02-04-087
Keywords: errors, practice
Posted-Date: 16 Apr 2002 00:51:46 EDT

Shankar Unni wrote:
> After all, is there really a fundamental difference between code not
> working because of the writer's mistake, or the compiler's mistake?


Yes.
I can test my own code by looking at the decision points and setting up
tests of things that I know are likely to break.
I cannot do this for compilers. I have to do "gunshot testing": try a
few things and see whether things start to break. Not very reliable, but
still the best that can be done. (Changing the compiler, or even just
the compiler options, and releasing the result untested would be
inviting disaster, of course.)


Regards,
Joachim

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