> Some of these benchmarked systems are "mission-critical" embedded systems, in which bad programming style can kill people. The run-time checks generated autom

> Some of these benchmarked systems are "mission-critical" embedded systems, in which bad programming style can kill people. The run-time checks generated automatically by Ada compilers are often turned off to gain a few additional percent in execution speed. Thus, rather than having the software discover its own errors in a benign way, the discovery of such errors is left to the FAA or a Congressional committee. > Engineers optimize what can be quantified; that is their job. Since execution performance is readily quantified, it is most often measured and optimized--even when increased performance is of marginal value; viz., the mandatory "performance results" section in most published papers. Quality and reliability of software is much more difficult to measure, and is therefore rarely optimized. It is human nature to "look for one's keys under the street-lamp, because that is where the light is brightest".