Re: Crash for Armidillo

From: Jake McGuire (jamcguir_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 08/12/04 

Date: 12 Aug 2004 15:20:27 -0700

sib101@gmail.com (Jack Sprat) wrote in message news:<f7cc9417.0408120520.ebe1c8c@posting.google.com>...
> Honestly, that's simply an absurd thing to post. If I'm developing
> medical software where lives are at stake, and I get a compile error,
> should I wring my hands in despair that I'm not taking it seriously
> enough?
>
> No, obviously, because I'm in development. At that stage of the
> process, errors are expected. It's the end-product that matters, and
> late-stage testing is different from early-stage testing.

If you're developing medical device code, and the attempt to build an
image for QA fails with a compilation error, you should be *very*
concerned, as there's no excuse for a developer to check code into
your version control system that doesn't compile. If he didn't
compile his changes, he certainly didn't test them.

And it's very hard to retrofit reliability into a design. It's much
easier to design it in from the beginning.
 
> Exactly whose life was put at risk here? The rockets are in
> development. He knew there was a problem, yet decided to risk
> launching, because he wanted to gather more data.

What data did he gather, other than "rocket engines don't work so well
without propellant", "my vehicle is indeed aerodynamically unstable",
and "our vehicle will not survive an unpowered fall from 1000 feet"?

And was that data worth five weeks of downtime?

-jake