Re: No Y2k Bug

["Joshua P. Hill" <XXjoshhill@mindspring.com>]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 17:48:45 GMT, /dev/null@.com (Justa Lurker) wrote:

>| NT is far from the only operating system avaikable, and among the many
>| that are, it is not the appropriate one for mission critical
>| applications. At best its best, it works in apps that require
>| semi-reliability such as servers.
>
>I didn't say it was the only one.  Just that it will do the job.  You
>seem to be unable to accept the fact that people DO use NT in mission
>critical roles.  Just because you are biased against that OS does not
>mean that it is not successfully used in other people's systems.

No one competent does. It isn't stable enough. There are other OS's
that are designed for mission critical applications, and are superior
in every way in those applications. And I'm not biased against NT; I'm
running it right now.

I mentioned this to some of my fellow engineers the other day and the
reaction as a shocked "you must be kidding." We are talking massive
professional incompetence here, on the order of a doctor prescribing
the wrong drug.

>| >As I said before, it depends on the mission.  A TRS-80 is fine IF you
>| >don't mind its failings AND you build what the box controls with
>| >appropriate failsafes so that if/when the box does die, it fails SAFE.
>| 
>| That's ridiculous. Why use something unreliable and put a kludge
>| around it when there are more reliable OS's that are designed for this
>| sort of application? There are no issues of economy or functionality
>| here; the architecture of NT just isn't good enough for sufficient
>| stablity or consistency.
>
>If you are not putting fail safes around whatever OS you promote, then
>you are operating in a dangerous manner.  Please give a list of all
>the designs that you have worked on so that we can avoid the danger.

That's a pretty feeble attempt to put words into my mouth. I didn't
say I wouldn't use failsafes; I said I would put them around something
suitable to the task, not something unreliable.

>| Rubbish; it's a basic engineering fact. I've read several articles
>| that mention the architectural issues involved, and the possibility
>| that Microsoft might fix them some day.
>
>This coming from the same company that believes that not being able to
>type 'DATE 1-1-00' at the command prompt is a "bug".  You are
>listening to lawyer talk, trying to keep MS off the hook.  MS also has
>the handicap of being a software company - if the hardware processor
>fails their OS is useless.

It has absolutely nothing to do with that. To be suited for real time
control applications, an operating system has to have scheduling
features that ensure that interrupts are serviced in a timely way and
given the proper priority. NT was not designed to do that. As I said,
there have been more than a few articles on that in the professional
press, which you apparently don't read.

>| >I'm sure you can name a few OS's that you believe are better for
>| >mission critical or real time applications.  Name ONE that has never
>| >failed.  Note the word NEVER.
>| 
>| You: "I send my clients across the Atlantic in rowboats."
>| 
>| Me: "That's ridiculous; a rowboat isn't the right kind of boat for
>| that."
>| 
>| You: "Name ONE kind of ship that has never sunk. Note the word NEVER."
>
>No comparison to reality unless you consider NT to be a rowboat,
>and yet you still fail to name an OS that doesn't fail.
>
>Unless your OS NEVER fails you still have to build somthing around it
>to protect the mission you have assigned it to.  Nothing worse than an
>OS that says everything is fine as it systematically destroys
>everyhing in its path.  The most basic failsafe is knowing when the OS
>has ceased to function.

Puh-leeze. this is total gobbledygook. You totally missed the point of
my analogy, so I suppose I'll have to spell it out for you. Any OS can
fail. Any OS in a crtiical safety application must have failsafes
around it. NT fails much more often than other OS's. Putting a
failsafe around it is like adding extra lifeboats to a leaky ship. It
is *not* the right tool for mission critical applications.

Thanks to government bureaucracy--no competent engineer in private
industry would have contemplated doing such a thing--NT was used as
the OS on some Navy cruisers. The failures that resulted were widely
laughable and widely publicized at the time among both hardware and
software engineers. 

-- 

Josh