[SystemSafety] Making Standards available .....

[Michael J. Pont]

My summary of this discussion.

 

We have a list made up of people who are interested in functional safety and
in "making the world a safer place".

 

It has been proposed that - to help make the world a safer place - we
should:

 

1.

give students free access to standards (such as IEC 61508);

 

2.

reduce the price of key textbooks;

 

3.

agree a list of material that students need to know.

 

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Personally, I don't think "1" is going to happen, and I'm not sure that it
would contribute very much to the "safer world" goal even if it did.   

 

[Let's stick with IEC 61508.  I think many students would be put off by the
standard (it's hardly a page turner).  We want to inspire these students!]

 

In my view, students can deal with the standards after graduation, and - if
we have the time available to teach functional safety - we should be
introducing practical techniques for developing safe systems (and discussing
various case studies).  If lower-cost textbooks help with this, then this
can be no bad thing.

 

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It seems to me that one of the most influential "standards" that has emerged
in recent years is MISRA C.  The standard is not free (but neither is it
expensive).   It has (in my view) made a positive contribution to the goal
of making the world a safer place.

 

MISRA C is (of course) a coding standard.  What would also be useful would
be a similar, pragmatic document that discussed design guidelines for
software in safety-related systems.  We also need a document that describes
how to record safety requirements and system requirements.

 

This (in my view) is the kind of material that we should be teaching our
students.  

 

If the documents proved to be useful then they could also form the
foundation for future standards (just as MISRA C is referenced in existing
standards).

 

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Members of this list could perhaps make a useful contribution to the
development of such documents?

 

There would be costs involved in this (I think we'd need to start by getting
round a table).  

 

Would anyone have any interest in getting involved?

 

Michael.

 

Michael J. Pont

SafeTTy Systems Ltd.

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