[SystemSafety] Bossavit's Leprechauns book

[Chris Hills]

Derek

I thought PBL was writing a list of "well known myths"  the members of this
list  could add to the ones in the book. 
" Bossavit says he is going to keep at it, with other memes. Let us hope he
does, for tracing memes is a worthwhile social enterprise for engineering. I
could suggest some more -- going through a list of recent themes on this
list:"


> -----Original Message-----
> From: systemsafety [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-
> bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of Derek M Jones
> Sent: Tuesday, December 4, 2018 2:07 PM
> To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
> Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Bossavit's Leprechauns book
> 
> Peter,
> 
> For someone interested in accuracy, you understanding of the
> conversation is rather inaccurate:
> 
> > * "Formal methods don't work"
> 
> Formal methods are oversold.
> 
> > * "Formal methods take up resources in development and don't pay them
> back in increased SW quality"
> 
> The cost/benefit of formal methods in comparison to other techniques
> is not known.
> 
> > * "You cannot evaluate software quality statistically"
> 
> Software quality is a meaningless term.
> 
> > * "C is as good as any other procedural language for writing critical
software"
> 
> What does "as good as" mean?
> 
> C is no different than any other language...
> 
> > * "You don't need a language to enforce strong data typing because your
> static analysis tools can
> > check if there could/would be type violations"
> 
> The enforcement of strong typing is static analysis.
> The only difference is that the compiler does it, rather than
> another tool.
> 
> I am a fan of strong typing, so I would slightly disagree with this
> statement.
> 
> > * "We can write better standards for critical SWE than what is there
already"
> 
> Obviously.
> 
> > * "Coding standards are not helpful"
> 
> Most current coding standards are not helpful.
> 
> 
> --
> Derek M. Jones           Software analysis
> tel: +44 (0)1252 520667  blog:shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com
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