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OT: The dangers of perfection, and why you should stick with good enough

by Bloodrage (Monk)
on Mar 12, 2008 at 02:56 UTC ( [id://673665]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re^2: The dangers of perfection, and why you should stick with good enough
in thread The dangers of perfection, and why you should stick with good enough

A piece of (say) game software is unlikely to result in death or injury

Actually I have discussed this specific scenario, my flat mate (A flat is a house in New Zealand sublet by a bunch of students) wrote flight sim software for a company that ran high-end arcade games. Coding standards were... loose (in that they were what the lead programmer said they were). The simulators were a cross between you standard in-cockpit arcade cabinet and a tumble dryer that used gravity and rotation to emulate the sensation of zooming around in space. The part of this project that caused a lot of contention between the Boss ("Get it done now cheap"), the Engineer ("ye canne break the laws of physics"), and the programmer ("you want what to do what now?") was; if the computer, which controlled everything, crashed, how could you program it (i.e. the crashed computer) to enter a safe mode that would stop the simulator and open the doors? The Boss insisted that the computer could do it, just write the code dammit. The programmer said it couldn't as that's an aspect of the Halting Problem and you needed a second computer. The engineer said they needed an independent redundant system with a big red button.

Eventually a micro-controller was installed, but the whole argument was referred to as the discussion about "Doors that shouldn't eat people". In this case the required standard is obvious, often when working to standards (or statutory requirements) the reasons can be obscured.


ahh no! my non sequitur powers!

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