[SystemSafety] Software reliability (or whatever you would prefer to call it)

[Littlewood, Bev]

Hi Michael

Um. Well…Of course what you say here is literally correct, but I think a little disingenuous in the context of a discussion in which a couple of academics were being hounded by the forces of unreason:-) But my comment was meant lightly (just as my previous sentence was a joke). I forgive you!

Cheers

Bev

On 9 Mar 2015, at 11:53, C. Michael Holloway <c.m.holloway at nasa.gov<mailto:c.m.holloway at nasa.gov>> wrote:

On 3/8/15 10:03 AM, Littlewood, Bev wrote a whole lot of stuff, but I only want to comment on the following:
But I did think Michael’s dig at academics was a bit below the belt. ...
I did not make a dig at academics.  I made a true statement about my experience, using language that was perhaps a tad bit less kind than it could have been, but nevertheless accurate.

Surely no one on this list would dispute the existence of academics who "seem to be swayed by arguments of dubious cogency and evidence of questionable credibility."   Just as no one on this list should dispute the same statement if "academics" were replaced by "government researchers", "practicing engineers", "certification authorities", "professional philosophers", or any other group.  If everyone on the list is honest with his or herself, neither should anyone dispute the statement if "academics" is replaced by his or her own name, modified only by an explicit qualifier such as "sometimes".  I certainly don't dispute it as applied to myself.

--
cMh

C. Michael Holloway, Senior Research Engineer

The words in this message are mine alone; neither blame nor credit NASA for them.
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Bev Littlewood
Professor of Software Engineering
Centre for Software Reliability
City University London EC1V 0HB

Phone: +44 (0)20 7040 8420  Fax: +44 (0)20 7040 8585

Email: b.littlewood at csr.city.ac.uk<mailto:b.littlewood at csr.city.ac.uk>

http://www.csr.city.ac.uk/
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