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From: cole@farmhand.rtp.dg.com (Bill Cole)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Provocative statement
Message-ID: <1991Apr24.172725.29301@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Date: 24 Apr 91 17:27:25 GMT
References: <9776@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: cole@farmhand (Bill Cole)
Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC
Lines: 21

Colin Brough writes:
|>  
|> The interesting point is not so much the difference between Europe and
|> the US, but rather the 'over-kill' approach.  Do people think this is
|> one way in which 'software engineering' will progress in the future?
|> 
|> I await the discussion with interest...

I'd tend to agree.  Non-Software Engineers tend to 'over engineer' products
so that the product won't fail under even the worst stress that is beyond
imagination.  There are, of course, those who will under engineer to
maximize 'profit'.

Those of us in software tend to make the assumption that we know all the
variables and can write sufficiently robust code to deal with almost
anything that happens.  Nonsense!  What we do in most cases is construct
a logic diagram that excludes events we haven't considered or don't want
to consider.  My picture is that a lot of us have written the minimum
acceptable code that will work if the users don't stress it too badly.

/Bill
Disclaimer on file.........