Why don't other programming languages have ranges?

[Don]

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.