Re: Ping John Larkin

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 10:45:54 -0700, "Paul Hovnanian P.E."
<paulh@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Joerg wrote:

[snip]

Where Windows does win is integrated test environments. Things like
where a technician scans the bar code of an engine, hits "Test", the
program alerts him that he forgot to turn on the VME box this morning,
spools up the engine, measures, shuts down, stores results on LAN and
prints out a traveler ***.

That's not Windows, per se. Its the test application. Sure, you can use
Windows for that. But then you might wind up with a scenario like:

Idiot test app. programmer writes code stubs that just return 'pass'
because he can't actually figure out how to talk to a particular
instrument.

Months later, after he quits (or is fired), the next programmer manages
to untangle his VBA code and finds the test stubs. Now, fearing that
he'll catch hell for the current situation, he hacks together a fix. But
instead of informing management and the QA department of the current
compliance situation, he sneaks on to the development server, dumps the
Source Safe data, inserts his patch and replaces it, undetected (thank
goodness nothing runs in Windows without everyone having admin. rights).
The next update to the ATE system incorporates this patch for all
subsequent UUT.

A few months (or years) pass. A conscientious QA inspector discovers the
original fault, the patch and cover-up. Unable to get satisfaction from
management, he grabs copies of supporting data with the intent of taking
it to federal regulators and the press. Police arrest him and charge him
with theft of company intellectual property.

Nah. It could never happen.

Yikes! Anything that's used in our manufacturing dept comes off the
company library server, and only two people have write priviliges to
that! If it's not formally released, with all sources and a sensible
README file, it's not going to be used. And if it's released, it's
backed up off-site.

John

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