Re: How to develop a random number generation device

Rich Grise wrote:
On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 22:41:15 +0200, David Brown wrote:
...
line of the C/C++ right, there are less lines in total. And for various
reasons (not all of which are understood), studies show that the rate of
bugs in programs is roughly proportional to the number of lines, almost
independent of the language and of the type of programming. Weird, but
apparently true.

Well, duh. People, in general, make some percentage of mistakes, i.e., the
absolute number of mistakes will be proportional to the amount of work
performed, regardless of whether it's programming or building a boat.

With hardware, there's a lot more rigorous checking on the way - their
guidelines aren't as nebulous as software specs. ;-)


That's one of the key points - hardware designs are tested far better. The other is that hardware designs typically have far lines of code (a ram device might have millions of gates - but it is generated by a small loop of code). Thus there are typically fewer bugs to start with, and better testing to eliminate those that have popped in.

But software that's designed right shouldn't have any bugs; saying "Oh, software _always_ has bugs" is just a lame excuse for sloppy design.


Yes - unless, of course, you business model relies on selling upgrades!

Admittedly, using defective tools isn't any help, but real programmers
don't use M$ Windoze anyway. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

.

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