[SystemSafety] Another unbelievable failure (file system overflow)

[Roberto Bagnara]

On 05/28/15 00:19, Heath Raftery wrote:
> On 28/05/2015 12:25 AM, Roberto Bagnara wrote:
>> According to
>>
>>    http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20150526-software-glitch-pauses-ls-test.html
>>
>>      "As more beacons are transmitted, the file grows in size. When it
>>       reaches 32 megabytes—roughly the size of ten compressed music
>>       files—it can crash the flight system. The manufacturer of the
>>       avionics board corrected this glitch in later software
>>       revisions. But alas, LightSail's software version doesn't include
>>       the update."
>>
>> OK, LightSail is a sort of amateur project, but still I have a hard
>> time believing such things can happen in 2015.
> 
> Interesting one Roberto. I for one, can imagine it happening in a resource strapped small company:
> 
> Programmer: "Got that bloody file system driver working. Had to hack some crap together to figure out where the problem is, but I figured it out so I'll just go back and take out the nonsense."
> Manager: "It's working right? We have to ship!"
> Programmer: "It's working now, but it's very suspect."
> Manager: "Good, it's working. Ship now. We'll do whatever polishing you want in version 2."
> Programmer: "Sigh. The proverbial 'version 2' that never comes..."

One thing that strikes me is the frequency with which
I see the expression "software glitch" being used to underplay
huge issues in process, design, implementation, analysis, testing.
I don't know what the word "glitch" suggests to a native English
language speaker, but to me it sounds like an increasingly abused
way to hide the reality of the issues involved.

-- 
     Prof. Roberto Bagnara

Applied Formal Methods Laboratory - University of Parma, Italy
mailto:bagnara at cs.unipr.it
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