jacob said:
santosh said:
[...]
If this is
so, and in due course the program fails to run because of an
out-of-memory situation due to the GC failing to collect blocks that it
should have, would you still say that such software can be reliably
used in safety or performance critical contexts?
Of course not. And I am not proposing that a conservative GC
that is OK for desktop applications be used in an airplane software.
Well, you *did* ridicule George Peter Staplin, saying
:> Incredible. And you will trust your life to the ability of a
:> programmer to avoid bugs in MANUALLY done memory management?
:>
:> I would prefer GC at any time!
... with the clear implication that automatic garbage collection
*is* safe for use in software on which lives depend. Would you
care to explain the apparent contradiction between your responses
to Mr. Staplin and to santosh?
As all other certifications process for complex software go.
You described *that* process to Eligiusz Narutowicz, saying
:> [...] a moderately complex piece of software can't be tested
:> exhaustively since the exponential growth of the combinations
:> of input parameters, interrupts, timing considerations, possible
:> paths through the software etc makes exhaustive testing impossible.
:> [...]
:> But no amount of testing will make bugs go away, [...]
Since a garbage collection system is "a moderately complex
piece of software," it follows that Program P plus GC has more
bugs than Program P standing by itself.