Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!m.cs.uiuc.edu!marick From: marick@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Brian Marick) Subject: Re: Provocative statement Message-ID: <1991Apr24.133109.19759@m.cs.uiuc.edu> Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL References: <9776@castle.ed.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 13:31:09 GMT Lines: 25 cmb@castle.ed.ac.uk (Colin Brough) writes: >In article 2355 of comp.parallel, Steven Ericsson Zenith > writes: >> Engineer's don't >> build bridges to fine tolerances - as suggested by the Computer Science >> formal methods community. They use over-kill in the main. Materials and >> designs proven to work from experience and then some!! >I await the discussion with interest... Such a discussion invariably involves many uncompromising people making absolute statements on topics they know nothing about. I, for one, am tired of statements beginning, "REAL Engineers do ..." by people who have never actually *met*, say, a civil engineer. Herman Petroski's _To Engineer is Human_ has chapters devoted to tolerances, overkill, the non-linear effects of design and requirement changes, and so on. It has case studies like the Tacoma Narrows bridge, the Kansas City skywalk failure, and the Grumman FLXBLE buses. Brian Marick Motorola @ University of Illinois marick@cs.uiuc.edu, uiucdcs!marick