Re: Mathematica and Lisp
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg129708] Re: Mathematica and Lisp
- From: Joseph Gwinn <joegwinn at comcast.net>
- Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2013 01:52:02 -0500 (EST)
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- Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@wolfram.com
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- References: <keqehj$erk$1@smc.vnet.net>
In article <keqehj$erk$1 at smc.vnet.net>, Bill Rowe <readnews at sbcglobal.net> wrote: > On 2/3/13 at 8:22 PM, lvsaba at hotmail.com (Matthias Bode) wrote: > > >The fact that WRI does not even "recommend the use of the Product" > >in instances where it could "threaten" ... "injury, or significant > >loss" does indeed constitute a most serious limitation to "the > >Product's" usefulness. > > Why do you reach the conclusion of "serious limitation"? All > that is really happening here is Wolfram is essentially > transferring legal responsibility for problems to the user. Not > any different than is typical of software developers. > > I don't think you can find any software with comparable > complexity/power to Mathematica that is bug free despite best > effort/intention of the software developer/programmer. Given > that, why would any software developer want to be held legally > responsible for damage etc caused by a bug he failed to find. > > Expecting Wolfram to willingly accept legal responsibility for > damages due to bugs in Mathematica is simply unrealistic. And it > is equally unrealistic to expect a developer of any similar > software to take willingly legal responsibility for damage > caused by bugs. Exactly. For a view of what it takes to make software almost bug-free, look at the DO178 certification process, which is used for software that controls airplanes - it the software fails, you lose the plane. As one would expect, DO178 is *very* heavy, causing at least a factor of ten cost increase. Or one hundred. If anything as complex as Mathematica could be certified at all - the scaling is far from linear. Joe Gwinn