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From: ben@tasis.utas.oz (Ben Lian)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: 6.0.2  and Word
Message-ID: <822@tasis.utas.oz>
Date: 13 Feb 89 01:23:32 GMT
References: <35727@bbn.COM> <730@wpi.WPI.EDU> <330@bridge2.3Com.Com>
Organization: Elec Eng & Comp Sci, Uni of Tasmania, Australia
Lines: 56
Reply-To:



In article <330@bridge2.3Com.Com> ngg@bridge2.3Com.com (Norman Goodger) writes:
>
>Losing 8 hours of work sounds like something he deserved if you aks me.
>Anyone foolish enough to trust a computer not to destroy his work by
>NOT SAVING FREQUENTLY deserves what he gets...and it appears to me that
>this person who is blaming Microsoft for the problem he created...needs
>to learn how to use Command-S a little more often...


(1) The original posting had to do with apparent incompatiblitites between
    Word 3.x and 6.0.2.  I have been running that combination since 6.0.2
    first arrived last year and have had little trouble, at least nothing that
    I could definitely ascribe to an interaction between the two.  It is 
    really difficult to pin down a problem if you run a lot of INITS, CDEVS,
    DAs etc etc.  Which leads me to...

(2) I agree completely with Norman.  I hadn't intended to post a "should've
    known better" note, since I've been-there-done-that.  But programming
    is a surprisingly difficult activity -- I doubt that there is a single
    programmer around who would be prepared to wager his/her life on the
    correctness of a LARGE application that they have created.  You just
    have to look at something like the U.S. space program and see how many
    software failures it has experienced over the years to see that no matter
    how much you test your software, you can rarely be 100% sure that its not
    going to do something naughty at the wrong time.  MS Word isn't part of
    the space program, but then again it isn't mission-critical software
    either and probably doesn't go through the same rigour in development.
    (Tell me I'm wrong Stu :-))

(3) And then, have you ever wondered why most (if not all) the software
    you buy comes with those seemingly outrageous disclaimers of liability?
    Some of the loudest complaints I have heard have come from engineers
    (I have two of them as brothers!) who gripe about the lack of professional
    responsibility shown by software vendors, who are not prepared to back-up
    their products.  In many engineering disciplines, the engineer can build
    a certain amount of tolerance into the design (the 'fudge facter').
    With programs, they are either correct or wrong.  All things being equal,
    a program either works perfectly and is guaranteed to never crash, or
    the vendor inserts an escape clause that protects him from years of very
    expensive litigation.  Unpalatable perhaps, but by the same token, also
    understandable.


Ben Lian




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Benjamin Y H Lian             ACSnet: ben@tasis.utas.oz
Dept. of EE & CS              ARPA  : ben%tasis.utas.oz.au@uunet.uu.net
University of Tasmania        BITnet: munnari!tasis.utas.oz!ben@
GPO Box 252C                          uunet.uu.net  (I think)
Hobart, Tasmania 7001         UUCP  : {enea,hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}!
A U S T R A L I A                     munnari!tasis.utas.oz!ben
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