All systems have bugs

[pmb]

mycrust had a half-snarky comment about helping his father-in-law fix the family entertainment system, and it made me go on a tear. Because there's a pretty deep issue here, and it pleasantly touches on lots of stuff close to my heart. But I think I should start by pointing out that the fix to the problem involved some small mucking-about with the

Comments

[pmb]

Note that the solution is not to throw one's hands in the air and do nothing even though a system may have a tendency to self-correct. Inputs are being purposely tweaked all the time.

[drinkywinky]

You compare OSes to the Tax system. They are nothing alike. The tax system (and economy in general) is complex and imperfectable because it multiple active forces trying to work around each other. Software is imperfectable only when there are problems at a lower level. It is quite possible that people resigned themselves to unknowable bugs because Intel screwed up division on the Pentium, back in the day.

On the other end of things, I've become amazed at how simple most things are. I've recently taken a new job where we, among other things, may start working on the controls system for a proton cancer therapy. This is the system where we shoot positively charged atoms at cancer to kill it. So, we read back some data, adjust some magnets, and boom, we shoot cancer. It's not that simple, but really, it's not that hard.

~Pete
Who told the software guy yesterday, "If we can put a rocket on the moon, we can get reliable USB data."

[pmb]

Rev 1 is always the easiest. Software maintenance is when things go sideways. And you are right that it is possible to get software right. The space shuttle does, for example. But they do it at a crippling cost to productivity. Something like 500 LOC per person per year. If you want it faster, and everyone does, then quality is necessarily going to suffer.

Is your program running on an OS? Is the OS Windows? Please say it's not. MS Windows controlling medical equipment gives me the willies.

[bagoffarts]

fyi, WinCE, thankfully, is not certifiable for life critical systems. Not sure about XP, and you would have to be certifiable to even consider vista.

[drinkywinky]

Correct. I hear FDA (or whoever handles devices) is very wary about software or anything with an OS. The critical hardware will probably be running parallel logic on an FPGA, which can be tested extensively.

[pmb]

Auto upgrading worries me. I have this vision of a 0-day bug that spoofs DNS and auto-upgrades you to version Pwn3d.0 transparently and forever , but it's hopefully more complicated than that (digital signatures and the like) and it's not clear how this differs from the power of any other random exploit. Maybe it's the idea that someone, by taking control of my WAP, could take over my whole computer in a very creepy way.

But I am all for software phoning home when it crashes. When I developed software for a living, I used to receive an email EVERY TIME it crashed.

[amoken]

It worries me a bit too.

The other relevant trend re the same comment, though, is the rising popularity of wikis and blogs-and even the old message board seems to be gaining a bit. Very recent information available on a wide range of topics, and if you can't find it, you can ask and often receive. Of course, this has a higher rate of useless or even damaging info than most instruction manuals or even an experienced father, but it's a start. People are trying.

[starmom]

Cool!

[bardand221]

I do believe that ALL systems have bugs as you have pointed out. And certainly the ordinary consumers have no way of fixing these bugs and have to rely on extended warranties. But the thing is extended warranties will end. Of course system problems will always be there. And auto upgrading the system? Not a lot even understand how that works.

I know that to even ask if there is a perfect system is idealistic. But the thing is, we need a good enough system that would work perfectly for us. I am not just talking here about technology, but system as a whole.

patrissimo : “I hate it when people think of the economy as an object rather than a system.”

So do I.

Bardan Dorminc
http://www.fastcashadvanceonline.info