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Design by Contract: The Lessons of Ariane

2 replies on 1 page. Most recent reply: Apr 18, 2002 11:25 PM by Matt Gerrans

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Bill Venners

Posts: 2284
Nickname: bv
Registered: Jan, 2002

Design by Contract: The Lessons of Ariane Posted: Apr 18, 2002 12:04 PM
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Earlier columns in IEEE Computer have emphasized the importance of Design by Contract for constructing reliable software. A $500-million software error provides a sobering reminder that this principle is not just a pleasant academic ideal," says this article by Jean-Marc Jezequel and Bertrand Meyer:

http://www.eiffel.com/doc/manuals/technology/contract/ariane/page.html


Thomas SMETS

Posts: 307
Nickname: tsmets
Registered: Apr, 2002

Re: Design by Contract: The Lessons of Ariane Posted: Apr 18, 2002 3:03 PM
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This is a really cool post Bill.
Now, does that mean to you that we should all jump to jdk 1.4, to use input / ouput validations (assertions) ?

What other conclusions could be drawn for the little poor java programmer we are :-)

Rgds,

Thomas,

Matt Gerrans

Posts: 1153
Nickname: matt
Registered: Feb, 2002

Re: Design by Contract: The Lessons of Ariane Posted: Apr 18, 2002 11:25 PM
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I'm not entirely clear why the conclusion is that design-by-contract would have caught this problem. Testing all the pre- and post- conditions is tantamount to having assertions and according to the report there wasn't enough time to for that: "Not all the conversions were protected because a maximum workload target of 80% had been set for the SRI computer." It sounds like they made a conscious decision not to require a contract for the three out of seven variables mentioned, so why would using a design-by-contract language solve the problem?

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