Program logic bugs vs input/environmental errors

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 10/7/2014 6:18 PM, Timon Gehr wrote:
 > I can report these if present.

Writing a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line isn't going to help you 
when the ship is sinking in the middle of the North Atlantic.

What will help is minimizing the damage that a detected fault may cause. You 
cannot rely on the specification when a fault has been detected. "This can't be 
happening!" are likely the last words of more than a few people.


> Can we at least agree that Dicebot's request for having the behaviour of
> inadvisable constructs defined such that an implementation cannot randomly
> change behaviour and then have the developers close down the corresponding
> bugzilla issue because it was the user's fault anyway is not unreasonable by
> definition because the system will not reach a perfect state anyway, and then
> retire this discussion?

I've been working with Dicebot behind the scenes to help resolve the particular 
issues with the code he's responsible for.

As for D, D cannot offer any guarantees about behavior after a program crash. 
Nor can any other language.