Re: How to develop a random number generation device

On 18 Sep, 17:12, John Larkin
<jjlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:05:25 -0700, Martin Brown

<|||newspam...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 18, 2:30 pm, MooseFET <kensm...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 17, 7:55 pm, John Larkin<jjlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[....]

Programmers have pretty much proven that they cannot write bug-free
large systems.

In every other area, humans make mistakes and yet we seem surprised
that programmers do too.

In most other areas of endeavour small tolerance errors do not so
often lead to disaster. Boolean logic is less forgiving. And fence

Software programming hasn't really had the true transition to a hard
engineering discipline yet. There hasn't been enough standardisation

Compare a software system to an FPGA. Both are complex, full of state
machines (implicit or explicit!), both are usually programmed in a
heirarichal language (C++ or VHDL) that has a library of available
modules, but the FPGAs rarely have bugs that get to the field, whereas
most software rarely is ever fully debugged.

I think that hardware engineers get a better grounding in logical
design (although I haven't looked at modern CS syllabuses so I may be
out of date).

But it is mostly a cultural thing. Software houses view minimum time
to market and first mover advantage to gain maximum market share as
more important than correct functionality. And it seems they are
right. Just look at Microsoft Windows vs IBMs OS/2 a triumph of superb
marketting over technical excellence!

And I have bought my fair share of hardware that made it onto the
market bugs and all too. My new fax machine caught fire. Early V90
modems that only half work etc.

So, computers should use more hardware and less software to manage
resources. In fact, the "OS kernal" of my multiple-CPU chip could be
entirely hardware. Should be, in fact.

You are treating the symptoms and not the disease. Strongly typed
languages already exist that would make most of the classical errors
of C/C++ programmers go away. Better tools would help in software
development, but until the true cost of delivering faulty software is
driven home the suits will always go for the quick buck.

Regards,
Martin Brown

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: How to develop a random number generation device
    ... Hardware can be spaghetti too, and can be buggy and nasty, if one does ... asynchronous design. ... to market and first mover advantage to gain maximum market share as ... of C/C++ programmers go away. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Open Source vs. Commercial
    ... Information about Open Source projects may seem like it's more ... software timely and excellent, they are undermining professional programmers' career possibilities, especially their ability to escape ... labor market and the final market. ... Here is a direct example of how FOSS is undercutting software developers even in cases where firms are paying software developers to create it. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: !p+, and thank you Jeff
    ... traditional Forth programmers, ... It is why our hardware can be simpler and our software can ... It was fun trying to write small and fast ... ANS Forth looks the way it does is because of Pentium ...
    (comp.lang.forth)
  • Re: Sound after upgrade to 11.1
    ... And many people have no problem with sound -- whereas ... I've been using SUSE since 7.0 and have heard the same complaints at ... to strenuously test their OS on *every possible combination of hardware ... There are thousands of programmers working on the kernel and all the ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • Re: Sound after upgrade to 11.1
    ... I've been using SUSE since 7.0 and have heard the same complaints at ... of hardware available*. ... There are thousands of programmers working on the kernel and all the ... Linux is *still* a largely volunteer environment. ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
Loading