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I have a different expectation of correctness; absolute correctness is impossible, in practice correctness is not a binary condition. Even if something provably
by barrkel 7y ago
I have a different expectation of correctness; absolute correctness is impossible, in practice correctness is not a binary condition. Even if something provably executes correctly according to spec, the spec may be wrong (and probably is, since everything interfaces with humans eventually). Everything is in a process of becoming; 100% correctness is not achievable, but it's not desirable either - it costs too much; it just needs to be better than the next best alternative.
- makach 7y agoEven with 100% correctness, your solution still has the capacity to fail spectacularly. The universe is infinite in its desire to mess with your expectations and assumptions of what correctness is! Oh, you thought that was 100% correct? Well, have a look: A platypus.
- AstralStorm 7y agoThe proper goal is robustness. It is either achieved via clear indication of failure and guidance on alternative solutions - so that the user can handle it. Or by actually failing gracefully and handling as many error conditions in an always reasonable way. Usually letting user handle it is more general as long as the failures are rare enough. Internal correctness is perfectly achievable though. External (correct spec) is not. There are always some unhandled conditions, due to hardware or external component failures...
- bregma 7y agoWow, that's along-winded way of saying "perfect is the enemy of good enough".
- mark-r 7y agoI once worked at a place where a bug in the spec was treated as impossible - if people couldn't get the results they wanted because the spec made it impossible, there was no way to get it fixed. Any attempt to log it as a bug was rejected.