Re: C++ fluency
On May 12, 12:23 am, Jerry Coffin <jcof...@taeus.com> wrote:
In article <mx_Nl.3969$fD.2...@flpi145.ffdc.sbc.com>, phlip2005
@gmail.com says...
[ ... ]
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html
You seem to have ignored or misread a great deal of what this
says. For example, at least by your definitions, they seem to
fully espouse the "big design up front" methodology:
"...carefully planning the software in advance, writing no
code until the design is complete, ..."
That's clear. The organization in question is well known, as it
was the first to attain SEI level 5.
Note that this does not contradict iterative development. It
does mean that each iteration will have a design phase preceding
the actual coding.
They fail to mention one crucial aspect of writing high
reliability. Typical software is delivered by itself, to be
used on whatever hardware the user already posesses, in
conjunction with whatever other software they happen to
have/get. High reliability software is run only on the
specified hardware, with only the specified software
installed. The difference this makes would be hard to
overstate!
The difference isn't that black and white. Most large scale
servers run on "dedicated" machines, but those machines (and the
OS on them) are still standard commercial offerings. You can't
reach the reliability of the space shuttle software with them
(since the OS itself isn't that reliable), and there's no point
in your software being more robust than the OS, *IF* it costs
more to make it so. (Typically, you can be several orders of
magnitude more reliable than the OS at negative cost---the steps
you take to improve reliability reduce development costs.)
--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@gmail.com
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