Re: Problems with Hardware, Languages, and Compilers

Francois-Rene Rideau wrote:
> Well, if these few bits are really important to the safety of your
> customers' projects, then to begin with, they shouldn't use a
> development system that won't guarantee them that they will have the
> right precision. Else, they might end like the European space agency,
> with a rocket that explodes out of a floating point overflow.


This is an unfair characterisation of what actually happened. If you
read the report, which can be found on the European Space Agency web
site (sorry, I don't have the URL), you will see that the software
worked perfectly. More precisely, the unit that caused the failure did
so because it was working exactly as designed, and, in addition, the
design was not in any way flawed.


Everyone who works on software that does anything more complicated
than run a talking parrot should read this report. If you don't finish
this report thinking "There but for the Grace of God" then your
software probably does rely on the Grace of God for its operation.
[This is comp.risks rather than comp.compilers material. -John]


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