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It seems to me that this is really a testing failure which, ironically, could be avoided by automating testing. An automated testing procedure could have ensure
by utexaspunk 17y ago
It seems to me that this is really a testing failure which, ironically, could be avoided by automating testing. An automated testing procedure could have ensured that every possible combination of inputs and failures was tried out.
- richieb 17y agoNot really. As Dijistra said: "Testing only proves existence of errors, not their absense."
- utexaspunk 17y agoSure, but in this case, the testing failed to detect an error which more rigorous testing would have detected. Like I said- automated testing, trying every possible combination, would have detected the failure discussed in the article.
- richieb 17y agoAnd how many possible combination were there to try? Even then this would cover just one class of errors. Automated tests are great (I use them all the time). But not all situations can be covered in a test - specially when there is concurrency involved.
- utexaspunk 17y agoTrue, but what else can you do? Modern aircraft are too complex to fly without automation... I'm not a CS-educated programmer- are there systems for programming in a way that can somehow be proven to work for all situations? What paradigm do they use for programming at NASA?
- tbrownaw 17y agoThat becomes impractical when your input space is more than a couple dozen bits, and completely impossible by the time you reach several dozen.