Everyone who writes safety critical software should read this

[growler]

On Tuesday, 5 November 2013 at 08:41:17 UTC, eles wrote:
> On Saturday, 2 November 2013 at 04:03:46 UTC, Walter Bright 
> wrote:
>> On 11/1/2013 8:03 AM, bearophile wrote:
>> I think you're missing the point. Improving the quality of the 
>> software is not the answer to making fail safe systems.
>
> Well, OTOH, worsening the software won't really increase the 
> reliability of the system.

Fail safe design needs to be engineered to handle the situation 
when any component fails regardless of the quality of components 
used. Software is just one more (weak) component in the system.

Of course component quality is important to overall safety 
because fail safe systems are not foolproof. But as Walter says 
it should not be part of the solution nor relied upon in a fail 
safe deign.