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But that's the thing, the errors keep getting eliminated but we keep getting new errors. There is no utopia where all the errors are gone, especially not from
by scotch_drinker 13y ago
But that's the thing, the errors keep getting eliminated but we keep getting new errors. There is no utopia where all the errors are gone, especially not from a top down driven language design. Can we get better? Sure and we have been. That's awesome. But I'm fairly sure we cannot "remove errors" as in "make things error free".
- chongli 13y agoI think you're being overly pedantic. When the author uses the phrase "remove errors" I take it to mean "remove a class (or classes) of errors". How is this not a worthy goal?
- scotch_drinker 13y agoI don't believe it's pedantic to see a difference between the words "reduce" and "remove". We think we can design top down systems that are error free. We are wrong. Systems are never error free and thinking they could be is actually quite bad for us. By doing everything we can to remove errors completely, we actually just ensure that the errors that remain will be much worse in scope. Far better to build a redundant system that is prepared for the errors instead of building an efficient system expecting no errors. It is certainly a worthy goal to reduce errors. To not do so would be silly. But expecting errors to go to zero is not a worthy goal because there are always errors.
- chongli 13y agoI don't believe it's pedantic to see a difference between the words "reduce" and "remove". No, but it's pedantic to generalize "remove errors" to "remove all errors". Actually, scratch that. It's just plain wrong. Far better to build a redundant system that is prepared for the errors instead of building an efficient system expecting no errors. Redundant systems only deal with certain classes of errors. You're making the same mistake you accuse the author of making.
- dcuthbertson 13y agoI don't think "remove errors" means "remove all errors", it just means some unspecified number or category of errors will be removed. Given that, "reduce errors" is probably more clear. Edit: oops - I meant to reply to the parent...