All, Michael Feldman <[log in to unmask]> writes: > I don't think I'm all that cynical; I just haven't seen any evidence > of public outrage about computer stuff, except a desire to punish > obvious crime (like kids who write viruses, etc.). I think it's > as much a problem of ignorance as of apathy. If anything, it is a matter of low expectations. People are by now so conditioned to having computers (well, software) fail on them that the universal remedy (just reboot the d*** thing) has become deeply engrained. I'm not sure who said that, but paraphrasing it: ``lowering expectations of software reliability was perhaps the biggest crime Microsoft committed''. Most people -- including computer science graduates -- have now grown up and were educated in an environment where highly complex and flaky systems are the norm. That theme was also brought up elsewhere in this thread: asserting that yes, you can design and build systems that perform their mission with a high level of accuracy and assurance is increasingly met with incredulity, even within the profession. And in many ways that attitude is justified given that the building blocks people are given to work with are ridiculously flawed and overly complex. > Well, I don't think it's realistic to expect ACM, a huge (~100,000-member) > and diverse organization, to be fanning the flames of anything. Such > an organization has to serve too many constituencies to "take sides". Not all hope is lost. The ACM position statement on the DMCA and its clear (if not literal) impetus of having research on security and reliability suppressed was something I would not have hoped for. But unless the theme is picked up by policy makers (and, I'm afraid, horribly mangled in the process) that's not going to go very far. So far the obscurantists and apologists for bad software have won the day. > > I'll also have to admit that, if anything, "we" (ACM) presently are doing > > just the opposite - aiding and abetting irresponsible practitioners. Certification always has and always will carry the danger of being outdated quickly and becoming a `cargo cult' process (again, too lazy to look up the reference). Unless there exists some mechanism to force the creators and consumers of software to adhere to certain standards, that might just accelerate the move of development to software sweatshops. > Some people on the IEEE-CS side of things are pressing strongly for > individual licensure of software engineers. After years of following > the debate over this, I still wonder whether it would make much > difference. Getting students (and practicioners) to acquire skills and appreciation for the tools available is a (weak) precondition for the development of high assurance systems. I'm not sure how efficient I am in proselytizing, but that does not stop me from trying to get people to raise expectations and developers to use proper tools and techniques, including Ada and formal methods for specification and validation. That probably puts me on Team Jeremiah as well as on Team Ada, but so what. -- later, Stephen Fraunhofer-IGD | mailto: Stephen Wolthusen | [log in to unmask] Fraunhoferstr. 5 | [log in to unmask] 64283 Darmstadt | [log in to unmask] GERMANY | | Tel +49 (0) 6151 155 539 | Fax: +49 (0) 6151 155 499