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"Programming against an abstraction of a reliable machine" is just plain old separation of concerns. This is good engineering practice. You don't worry about lo
by gfody 13y ago
"Programming against an abstraction of a reliable machine" is just plain old separation of concerns. This is good engineering practice. You don't worry about low level failures in high level code, and you shouldn't introduce more high level failure modes than are necessary. Addressing failures in the appropriate layer is perfectly apt. If ECC is insufficient then revise ECC. Declaring the approach to be a fundamentally flawed is to challenge one of the pillars of good engineering.
- dang 12y agoThis comment is a middlebrow dismissal. It dismisses the entire article with a woolly generality like "good engineering practice". Not only that, but it dismisses the entire debate that the article is about, as if it were an obvious non-issue. This article is really substantive and deserves much better.
- gfody 12y agoI beg your pardon, Separation of concerns is a fundamental principle of good engineering practice and that seems to be what the debate is about. I gave a couple examples in my comment, not just a vague dismissal (and it's not like SoC needs me to defend it). OP's article made a few unsubstantiated claims about ECC and silent corruption. These are presented as reasons to abandon the entire approach of "programming to an abstraction of a perfect machine" rather than just addressing the allegedly insufficient failsafes directly.