This thread on Hacker News terrifies me

[tide]

On Saturday, 1 September 2018 at 08:05:58 UTC, Walter Bright 
wrote:
> On 8/31/2018 5:47 PM, tide wrote:
>> I've already read them before. Why don't you explain what is 
>> wrong with it rather than posting articles.
>
> Because the articles explain the issues at length. Explaining 
> why your proposal is deeply flawed was the entire purpose I 
> wrote them.

I didn't write a proposal. I was explaining a flaw in your 
proposal.

>> You are just taking one line comments without even thinking 
>> about the context.
>
> We can start with the observation that a fly-by-wire is not a 
> fundamentally different system than a fully powered hydraulic 
> system or even a pilot muscle cable system, when we're talking 
> about safety principles.

It is vastly different, do you know what fly by wire is? It means 
the computer is taking input digitally and applying the commands 
from the digital input into actual output. If the system 
controlling that just stops working, how do you expect the pilot 
to fly the plane? While all they are doing is moving a digital 
sensor that is doing nothing because the system that reads it 
input hit an assert.

> There's nothing magic about software. It's just more 
> complicated (a fact that makes it even MORE important to adhere 
> to sound principles, not throw them out the window).

I didn't say to throw them the door, I'm saying there's a lot of 
different ways to do things. And using asserts isn't the one ring 
to rule all safety measures. There are different methods, and 
depending on the application, as with anything, has it's pros and 
cons where a different method will be more suitable.