3 ms·

All programming though ? That's a stretch. Like I'm pretty sure there are domains where correctness of programs is paramount

by rdedev 5y ago

worble 5y ago
Is there a domain where correctness is not paramount?
- carlhjerpe 5y ago
  If people don't die from your mistakes they're not important IMO. Note that people die if data is lost, causing companies to go bankrupt (suecide). But really, not everything has to be correct, look at Intel and AMD. They've been compromising correctness for speed for quite awhile, and we're mostly fine.
  - bamboozled 5y ago
    Yeah because losing money, market share or people’s data is fine ?
    - carlhjerpe 5y ago
      Depends on the numbers, if my company loses 10k because i made a mistake nobody would "care". Mistakes happen to the best of us, which is obviuous looking at public CVE's. If it's 100k it'd be a different story, considering we're not that big (35 employees). It's just money, it can be replaced, human lives can't. EDIT: I assume from your comment that you formally verify every line of code in every system you depend on, and run RISC-V to make sure the hardware doesn't tamper with your instructions.
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  Computer graphics maybe? You can shift goal posts what "correctness" means, but if a game renders something in a funny way, it's really not going to hurt anyone. Yes, if it's constantly a total mess nobody will want to play the game, but 1. that would be (presumably) found quickly during testing, and 2. this is a very gradual tradeoff. Nowhere near "paramount".
- simonh 5y ago
  Yes absolutely. Take games for example, bugs are absolutely tolerable and to be expected. In fact most software of any kind has known bugs that are simply accepted because the cost to fix them exceeds the value of doing so.
- SkyBelow 5y ago
  Any domain where the code will be used by a consumer who will go with a mostly correct program that has a fraction of the cost over one proven correct. I suspect this to be the majority of code written.
- dxbydt 5y ago
  >is there a domain where correctness is not paramount ? pretty much every domain, if you exclude finance & industries that intersect with life and death decisions such as pharma/medicine/airlines/defense. what’s the correct order of movie recommendation ? its easy to see that given your past netflix history, there is an obviously incorrect order. but there is no obviously correct order - any number of orderings will work. correctness is not paramount. what’s the correct puzzle to assign to a 1400 on chess.com ? obviously there are hundreds of them that would work. correctness is not paramount. what’s the “correct price” of a used Ford Focus ? depends on whether you are a bandit who needs the car for a rapid getaway, or whether you are the brother in law of the used car salesman, in which case the correct price is zero usd. the sole reason why 100 million developers crowd the web programming circuit and not other gatekeeped domains is because correctness is not paramount. whether your color code is off by a shade on this browser or your pixels misaligned on that browser, its all fine so long as it somewhat works. correctness is not paramount. otherwise nothing would ship.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

All programming though ? That's a stretch. Like I'm pretty sure there are domains where correctness of programs is paramount

by rdedev 5y ago

All programming though ? That's a stretch. Like I'm pretty sure there are domains where correctness of programs is paramount

worble 5y ago

Is there a domain where correctness is not paramount?

carlhjerpe 5y ago
If people don't die from your mistakes they're not important IMO. Note that people die if data is lost, causing companies to go bankrupt (suecide). But really, not everything has to be correct, look at Intel and AMD. They've been compromising correctness for speed for quite awhile, and we're mostly fine.
- bamboozled 5y ago
  Yeah because losing money, market share or people’s data is fine ?
  - carlhjerpe 5y ago
    Depends on the numbers, if my company loses 10k because i made a mistake nobody would "care". Mistakes happen to the best of us, which is obviuous looking at public CVE's. If it's 100k it'd be a different story, considering we're not that big (35 employees). It's just money, it can be replaced, human lives can't. EDIT: I assume from your comment that you formally verify every line of code in every system you depend on, and run RISC-V to make sure the hardware doesn't tamper with your instructions.
MauranKilom 5y ago
Computer graphics maybe? You can shift goal posts what "correctness" means, but if a game renders something in a funny way, it's really not going to hurt anyone. Yes, if it's constantly a total mess nobody will want to play the game, but 1. that would be (presumably) found quickly during testing, and 2. this is a very gradual tradeoff. Nowhere near "paramount".
simonh 5y ago
Yes absolutely. Take games for example, bugs are absolutely tolerable and to be expected. In fact most software of any kind has known bugs that are simply accepted because the cost to fix them exceeds the value of doing so.
SkyBelow 5y ago
Any domain where the code will be used by a consumer who will go with a mostly correct program that has a fraction of the cost over one proven correct. I suspect this to be the majority of code written.
dxbydt 5y ago
>is there a domain where correctness is not paramount ? pretty much every domain, if you exclude finance & industries that intersect with life and death decisions such as pharma/medicine/airlines/defense. what’s the correct order of movie recommendation ? its easy to see that given your past netflix history, there is an obviously incorrect order. but there is no obviously correct order - any number of orderings will work. correctness is not paramount. what’s the correct puzzle to assign to a 1400 on chess.com ? obviously there are hundreds of them that would work. correctness is not paramount. what’s the “correct price” of a used Ford Focus ? depends on whether you are a bandit who needs the car for a rapid getaway, or whether you are the brother in law of the used car salesman, in which case the correct price is zero usd. the sole reason why 100 million developers crowd the web programming circuit and not other gatekeeped domains is because correctness is not paramount. whether your color code is off by a shade on this browser or your pixels misaligned on that browser, its all fine so long as it somewhat works. correctness is not paramount. otherwise nothing would ship.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]