Why don't other programming languages have ranges?

[BCS]

Hello Walter,

> BCS wrote:
> 
>> Hello Walter,
>> 
>>> BCS wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Every engineering discipline I have any experience with gets a heck
>>>> of a lot closer to producing formal proofs of correctness than
>>>> programing.
>>>> 
>>> Mechanical engineering designs also tend to be a lot simpler than
>>> programs, although the environment they work in is far more complex.
>>> Modeling for the design analysis also takes a very simplified view
>>> of the actual design, justified by taking the worst case. For
>>> example, the strength calculations are done for the weakest cross
>>> section, and are not bothered with for the obviously stronger
>>> sections.
>>> 
>> Now days they just jump to using finite element and compute
>> everything.
>> 
> I still see calcs submitted for approval that are done by hand on
> paper.
> 
> If you want to see real seat of the pants engineering, look at one of
> those hot rod shows like Musclecar. I don't think those guys have ever
> even seen a calculator.
> 

and anyone who knows what they are doing should be able to clean up... but 
where's the fun in that.

>>> Furthermore, after a while a good mechanical engineer develops a
>>> "feel" for things that is pretty darned accurate. Going through the
>>> analysis is a backup
>>> 
>> No, the analysis is mandated, by code if not law.
>> 
> Not much. Even for buildings, only a few critical spots need checking.
> This is possible because building structures are usually way
> over-designed, because it's cheap and convenient to do so. Where every
> gram counts, like in a spacecraft, everything is analyzed.
> 

Mostly they avoid doing detailed analysts by reducing thing to already solved 
problems: i.e. they do what the building code says or look up the accepted 
values or follow the best practices.

These sources can be treated as theorems: under conditions X, Y and Z if 
you satisfy constraints A, B and C, things don't break. Thus we have design 
by modus ponens.


> I once had a fire hydrant installed on my property. The city required
> an engineering analysis, which ran to quite a stack of paper. After
> approval, the workers came by to install it. They never looked at the
> analysis, or even the drawings, they just dug up the water main and
> stuck a hydrant on it with a specialized tool they had. Done in an
> hour or so.
> 

I'd almost bet that buried somewhere in the fine print of the "engineering 
analysis" was the assertion "the standard way works" or the same things in 
10 times the words. 

-- 
... <IXOYE><