[SystemSafety] New paper on MISRA C

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

First, I would like to thank everyone, particularly Roberto, David and Andrew, for the material on
MISRA C and its origins, much of which I didn't know. I found it fascinating.

David wanted inter alia to
> correct a few misconceptions 

May it be time for someone to compile an oral history?

I was working at central computing services in UC Berkeley from about 1979 to 1981 and was around
when much of the key issues in the development of Berkeley Unix were being decided. Porting the Unix
kernel to the 32-bit Vax in a non-trivial way; implementing TCP/IP on a general-purpose computer
rather than on BBN specialist boxes, and so on. A few years later, histories started to come out in
various ways and my most two common reactions were "who he?" (very rarely "who she", even though at
the time the UC Berkeley undergraduate major admitted more women than men) and "that is not the way
I recall it happened".

What I thought happened is one component of what is called "oral history". When you have written
down what 50 people thought happened, made some attempt to reconcile differences, and summarise,
then you have an oral history. I think tech oral histories are fascinating and valuable. As well as
all too rare.

Might I suggest to participants that they write down in more detail what has appeared here? And
maybe coordinate with each other to put the essays up on some WWW site somewhere?

There is a separate issue which Paul has brought up, namely what assuring component reliability
brings to system safety. It is not specifically about MISRA C. I will address that separately.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
MoreInCommon
Je suis Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de





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