Software Quality in Science
in [ADA]
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From: Rick on 11 Feb 2010 03:29 Bob Spooner wrote: > In my experience, a lot of the problem with lack of improvement in software > quality and reliability when using Ada results from developers writing Ada > code the same way they write C. Then you don't get Ada's advantages and > debugging is just as much of a problem as with C, with problem symptoms > showing up far from the cause, etc. If Ada isn't used the way it was > designed to be used, you get results similar to when you try to use a pair > of pliers as a hammer. Darrel Ince (in the Guardian article) gave us an insight into the problem when he wrote of scientific software being: "... produced by software engineers who have to undergo a regime of thorough testing, quality assurance and a change control discipline known as configuration management." Two things are worth noting in that quotation: 1. My reading in the field leads me to believe that "thorough testing, quality assurance and a change control discipline" are pretty thin on the ground in COTS software houses; 2. There aren't a lot of Software Engineers around (if you emphasise 'Engineer'). Bear in mind that Engineering is an attitude, not a qualification. I believe that these are two of the foci Bob is looking for. Good luck, Bob.
From: Hibou57 (Yannick Duchêne) on 11 Feb 2010 17:39 On 9 fév, 22:51, Jerry <lancebo...(a)qwest.net> wrote: > Here is the link in the Guardian article to the original work: > > http://www.leshatton.org/Documents/Texp_ICSE297.pdf Waw, this one is really not a love-letter : After it introduced common pitfalls which may await the unwaries, it goes straight to this words : > In contrast, predicting the existence of a new sub-atomic particle > seems a relatively straightforward exercise. I surprised (if confirmed) that FORTRAN (which I've never experienced) is even less safe than C.
From: Brian Drummond on 11 Feb 2010 18:10 On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:39:08 -0800 (PST), Hibou57 (Yannick Duch�ne) <yannick_duchene(a)yahoo.fr> wrote: >On 9 f�v, 22:51, Jerry <lancebo...(a)qwest.net> wrote: >> Here is the link in the Guardian article to the original work: >> >> http://www.leshatton.org/Documents/Texp_ICSE297.pdf >Waw, this one is really not a love-letter : > >After it introduced common pitfalls which may await the unwaries, it >goes straight to this words : >> In contrast, predicting the existence of a new sub-atomic particle >> seems a relatively straightforward exercise. > >I surprised (if confirmed) that FORTRAN (which I've never experienced) >is even less safe than C. It certainly can be. Mis-spell a variable name, and you have just declared a new one, not accessed the one you expected... (There are usually ways to turn implicit declarations off, or make them compile time errors or warnings.) - Brian
From: Hibou57 (Yannick Duchêne) on 11 Feb 2010 18:21 On 12 fév, 00:10, Brian Drummond <brian_drumm...(a)btconnect.com> wrote: > It certainly can be. > > Mis-spell a variable name, and you have just declared a new one, not accessed > the one you expected... (There are usually ways to turn implicit declarations > off, or make them compile time errors or warnings.) > > - Brian If you are not careful, a similar thing may occurs with Ada also : derive from a tagged type, "redefine" a miss-spelled ancestor method, and you've created a new method on your back. But Ada provides a nice way to avoid it : systematically make use of "overriding" / "not overriding". The dark side is that this is optional and not required by the language rules.
From: Hibou57 (Yannick Duchêne) on 11 Feb 2010 18:24
On 12 fév, 00:21, Hibou57 (Yannick Duchêne) <yannick_duch...(a)yahoo.fr> wrote: > "overriding" / "not overriding". The dark side is that this is > optional and not required by the language rules. I've forgot to say an important thing : AdaControl may help a lot in this area ;) |