RG <rnospa...@flownet.com> writes:
> In article <lnbp7g58b4....@nuthaus.mib.org>,
> Keith Thompson <ks...@mib.org> wrote:
[...]
>> Even here, maximum() did exactly what was asked of it.
>
> Of course. Computers always do only exactly what you ask of them. On
> this view there is, by definition, no such thing as a bug, only
> specifications that don't correspond to one's intentions.
> Unfortunately, correspondence to intentions is the thing that actually
> matters when writing code.
Of course there's such a thing as a bug.
This version of maximum:
int maximum(int a, int b) {
return a > b ? a : a;
}
has a bug. This version:
int maximum(int a, int b) {
return a > b ? a : b;
}
I would argue, does not. The fact that it might be included in a
buggy program does not mean that it is itself buggy.
[...]
> I'm not saying one should not use compile-time tools, only that one
> should not rely on them. "Compiling without errors" is not -- and
> cannot ever be -- be a synonym for "bug-free."
Agreed. (Though C does make it notoriously easy to sneak buggy code
past the compiler.)
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks...@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Nokia
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
