Why don't other programming languages have ranges?

BCS none at anon.com
Tue Aug 3 09:02:25 PDT 2010


Hello Jim,

> "Don" <nospam at nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:i2rk4b$2jet$1 at digitalmars.com...
> 
>> Jim Balter wrote:
>> 
>>> "Walter Bright" <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message
>>> news:i2nkto$8ug$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>> 
>>>> bearophile wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> You have to think about proofs as another (costly) tool to avoid
>>>>> bugs/bangs,
>>>>> but not as the ultimate and only tool you have to use (I think
>>>>> dsimcha
>>>>> was
>>>>> trying to say that there are more costly-effective tools. This can
>>>>> be
>>>>> true,
>>>>> but you can't be sure that is right in general).
>>>> I want to re-emphasize the point that keeps getting missed.
>>>> 
>>>> Building reliable systems is not about trying to make components
>>>> that cannot fail. It is about building a system that can TOLERATE
>>>> failure of any of its components.
>>>> 
>>>> It's how you build safe systems from UNRELIABLE parts. And all
>>>> parts are unreliable. All of them. Really. All of them.
>>>> 
>>> You're being religious about this and arguing against a strawman.
>>> While all parts are unreliable, they aren't *equally* unreliable.
>>> Unit tests, contract programming, memory safe access, and other
>>> reliability techniques, *including correctness proofs*, all increase
>>> reliability.
>>> 
>> I have to disagree with that. "Correctness proofs" are based on a
>> total
>> fallacy. Attempting to proving that a program is correct (on a real
>> machine, as opposed to a theoretical one) is utterly ridiculous.
>> I'm genuinely astonished that such an absurd idea ever had any
>> traction.
> I've also heard from people genuinely astonished that such an absurd
> idea as that humans evolved from worms ever had any traction.

Well, it is kinda absurd (statistically) unless you assume the existence 
of "god" is absurd, at which point the anthropic participial more or less 
forces it you into accepting it.

So, I guess that, by dragging in theology, you are asserting by analogy that 
the idea of proving a program correct may or may not be absurd, depending 
on what axioms you start with?


-- 
... <IXOYE><





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