Great News! Princeton plans to eliminate all software bugs!
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Princeton University - Computer scientists launch campaign to guarantee bug-free software[^] I realize this is old news (Kent posted it last week [^]), but I don't feel that it has been sufficiently ridiculed yet. Then again, perhaps I am just unduly skeptical about a group of 8 students and 2 professors that "aims to eliminate out [sic] bugs in complex software" with $10M over 5yrs. It certainly is a venerable goal; and who am I to suggest that they might possibly be a tad over-ambitious? After all, they have already recognized that their "initial challenge will be to dissect the overwhelming complexity of modern hardware and software to uncover the factors that determine how various computer components work together," which sounds like a prudent starting point, even if it does end up taking a good couple of weeks out of their schedule. And, of course, I shouldn't overlook the fact that they wisely have planned to develop their so-called "deep specifications" using such proven strategies as "deductive reasoning, syllogisms and mathematics". It's only a shame that we have had to wait so long for these eminent tools to be applied to the plebeian field of Computer Science! So... never mind my suggestion. I humbly retract my call for ridicule. Clearly what we need to do is herald this project as the "coming of age for the industry". And not just for this industry! Indeed -- as the team has presciently observed -- this breakthrough could impact "not only computer science disciplines, but many other disciplines as well." Think of it! With just a few extra years and some more far-sighted grants from the NSF, we might be on the cusp of seeing the eradication of errors from all modern scientific endeavors! Wow! I don't know about you, but I think we could use a few less mistakes in science as we know it. And all that for only $10M? What a bargain!
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Princeton University - Computer scientists launch campaign to guarantee bug-free software[^] I realize this is old news (Kent posted it last week [^]), but I don't feel that it has been sufficiently ridiculed yet. Then again, perhaps I am just unduly skeptical about a group of 8 students and 2 professors that "aims to eliminate out [sic] bugs in complex software" with $10M over 5yrs. It certainly is a venerable goal; and who am I to suggest that they might possibly be a tad over-ambitious? After all, they have already recognized that their "initial challenge will be to dissect the overwhelming complexity of modern hardware and software to uncover the factors that determine how various computer components work together," which sounds like a prudent starting point, even if it does end up taking a good couple of weeks out of their schedule. And, of course, I shouldn't overlook the fact that they wisely have planned to develop their so-called "deep specifications" using such proven strategies as "deductive reasoning, syllogisms and mathematics". It's only a shame that we have had to wait so long for these eminent tools to be applied to the plebeian field of Computer Science! So... never mind my suggestion. I humbly retract my call for ridicule. Clearly what we need to do is herald this project as the "coming of age for the industry". And not just for this industry! Indeed -- as the team has presciently observed -- this breakthrough could impact "not only computer science disciplines, but many other disciplines as well." Think of it! With just a few extra years and some more far-sighted grants from the NSF, we might be on the cusp of seeing the eradication of errors from all modern scientific endeavors! Wow! I don't know about you, but I think we could use a few less mistakes in science as we know it. And all that for only $10M? What a bargain!
Of course, they will then need $20 and another 10 years for a project to eliminate all the errors in their "eliminate all the bugs" project. This will then need $40 for another project... [repeating ad infinitum].
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Princeton University - Computer scientists launch campaign to guarantee bug-free software[^] I realize this is old news (Kent posted it last week [^]), but I don't feel that it has been sufficiently ridiculed yet. Then again, perhaps I am just unduly skeptical about a group of 8 students and 2 professors that "aims to eliminate out [sic] bugs in complex software" with $10M over 5yrs. It certainly is a venerable goal; and who am I to suggest that they might possibly be a tad over-ambitious? After all, they have already recognized that their "initial challenge will be to dissect the overwhelming complexity of modern hardware and software to uncover the factors that determine how various computer components work together," which sounds like a prudent starting point, even if it does end up taking a good couple of weeks out of their schedule. And, of course, I shouldn't overlook the fact that they wisely have planned to develop their so-called "deep specifications" using such proven strategies as "deductive reasoning, syllogisms and mathematics". It's only a shame that we have had to wait so long for these eminent tools to be applied to the plebeian field of Computer Science! So... never mind my suggestion. I humbly retract my call for ridicule. Clearly what we need to do is herald this project as the "coming of age for the industry". And not just for this industry! Indeed -- as the team has presciently observed -- this breakthrough could impact "not only computer science disciplines, but many other disciplines as well." Think of it! With just a few extra years and some more far-sighted grants from the NSF, we might be on the cusp of seeing the eradication of errors from all modern scientific endeavors! Wow! I don't know about you, but I think we could use a few less mistakes in science as we know it. And all that for only $10M? What a bargain!
Unless they are planning to code using lego and super glue or get Chuck N to do all the coding this is just foolish nonsense. :)
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Princeton University - Computer scientists launch campaign to guarantee bug-free software[^] I realize this is old news (Kent posted it last week [^]), but I don't feel that it has been sufficiently ridiculed yet. Then again, perhaps I am just unduly skeptical about a group of 8 students and 2 professors that "aims to eliminate out [sic] bugs in complex software" with $10M over 5yrs. It certainly is a venerable goal; and who am I to suggest that they might possibly be a tad over-ambitious? After all, they have already recognized that their "initial challenge will be to dissect the overwhelming complexity of modern hardware and software to uncover the factors that determine how various computer components work together," which sounds like a prudent starting point, even if it does end up taking a good couple of weeks out of their schedule. And, of course, I shouldn't overlook the fact that they wisely have planned to develop their so-called "deep specifications" using such proven strategies as "deductive reasoning, syllogisms and mathematics". It's only a shame that we have had to wait so long for these eminent tools to be applied to the plebeian field of Computer Science! So... never mind my suggestion. I humbly retract my call for ridicule. Clearly what we need to do is herald this project as the "coming of age for the industry". And not just for this industry! Indeed -- as the team has presciently observed -- this breakthrough could impact "not only computer science disciplines, but many other disciplines as well." Think of it! With just a few extra years and some more far-sighted grants from the NSF, we might be on the cusp of seeing the eradication of errors from all modern scientific endeavors! Wow! I don't know about you, but I think we could use a few less mistakes in science as we know it. And all that for only $10M? What a bargain!
When Louis Bleriot first flew across the channel, the idea that one day members of the working class would be able to do the same for the cost of a decent lunch and some unplanned intimacy with a stranger under the guise of "security" seemed very unlikely - but now the airline industry is one of the most reliable most of us will ever interact with. The path of the software industry over similar time span has not gone nearly as well. I think in some respects this is because planes are but by engineers whereas software is built by mathematicians. Engineers are noise and fault tolerant, mathematicians are noise and fault intolerant. So whilst the hardware we work on is fault tolerant (think parity bits etc.) the software that runs on it is not. Sadly what is likely to arise from the "DeepSpec" is a shifting of the fault-intolerance up from the software into the design phase. I personally have walked this path before with formal specification languages (Z in particular) but have come to the opinion that they just cannot work because the real world is messy and unknowable so at some point a "tolerance zone" will need to exist. I personally feel that the closer this zone is to the hardware the better our software will be ... bug survivable systems rather than bug free ones.
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Princeton University - Computer scientists launch campaign to guarantee bug-free software[^] I realize this is old news (Kent posted it last week [^]), but I don't feel that it has been sufficiently ridiculed yet. Then again, perhaps I am just unduly skeptical about a group of 8 students and 2 professors that "aims to eliminate out [sic] bugs in complex software" with $10M over 5yrs. It certainly is a venerable goal; and who am I to suggest that they might possibly be a tad over-ambitious? After all, they have already recognized that their "initial challenge will be to dissect the overwhelming complexity of modern hardware and software to uncover the factors that determine how various computer components work together," which sounds like a prudent starting point, even if it does end up taking a good couple of weeks out of their schedule. And, of course, I shouldn't overlook the fact that they wisely have planned to develop their so-called "deep specifications" using such proven strategies as "deductive reasoning, syllogisms and mathematics". It's only a shame that we have had to wait so long for these eminent tools to be applied to the plebeian field of Computer Science! So... never mind my suggestion. I humbly retract my call for ridicule. Clearly what we need to do is herald this project as the "coming of age for the industry". And not just for this industry! Indeed -- as the team has presciently observed -- this breakthrough could impact "not only computer science disciplines, but many other disciplines as well." Think of it! With just a few extra years and some more far-sighted grants from the NSF, we might be on the cusp of seeing the eradication of errors from all modern scientific endeavors! Wow! I don't know about you, but I think we could use a few less mistakes in science as we know it. And all that for only $10M? What a bargain!
It is said that: Only two people make no mistakes - the unborn child, and the dead man. All others in between do make mistakes. Analogously, only two code snippets don't have bugs - the unwritten code snippet, and the one which is irrecoverably scrapped :-)
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Princeton University - Computer scientists launch campaign to guarantee bug-free software[^] I realize this is old news (Kent posted it last week [^]), but I don't feel that it has been sufficiently ridiculed yet. Then again, perhaps I am just unduly skeptical about a group of 8 students and 2 professors that "aims to eliminate out [sic] bugs in complex software" with $10M over 5yrs. It certainly is a venerable goal; and who am I to suggest that they might possibly be a tad over-ambitious? After all, they have already recognized that their "initial challenge will be to dissect the overwhelming complexity of modern hardware and software to uncover the factors that determine how various computer components work together," which sounds like a prudent starting point, even if it does end up taking a good couple of weeks out of their schedule. And, of course, I shouldn't overlook the fact that they wisely have planned to develop their so-called "deep specifications" using such proven strategies as "deductive reasoning, syllogisms and mathematics". It's only a shame that we have had to wait so long for these eminent tools to be applied to the plebeian field of Computer Science! So... never mind my suggestion. I humbly retract my call for ridicule. Clearly what we need to do is herald this project as the "coming of age for the industry". And not just for this industry! Indeed -- as the team has presciently observed -- this breakthrough could impact "not only computer science disciplines, but many other disciplines as well." Think of it! With just a few extra years and some more far-sighted grants from the NSF, we might be on the cusp of seeing the eradication of errors from all modern scientific endeavors! Wow! I don't know about you, but I think we could use a few less mistakes in science as we know it. And all that for only $10M? What a bargain!
For $10 million, I'll come up with whatever bullshit project you want. The trick is writing good grant requests, not actually making sense with them.