shakey foundations
We've all seen evidence of bugs in Windows. In my past experience I've even seen a bug or 2 in Unix (who knows- there might be more). Usually when you create a simple app (1 thread, no comm, ...) things go as the documentation almost says (not always). I had an instance once when extending a system written in C on VMS and connected to a RDB database. I created a new table and made my 1st db call to that table. The app work, but started using more & more memory. I fine combed through it (took me lots of time) but did not find any errors in my code. Eventually I made a call to a previously created table 1st (dummy read) and then proceeded as before. This time no memory leak. I got my manager (1 that is technically very compotent) to see what went wrong. He too couldn't understand it. This is but one instance where the things just behaved strangley. So if the foundations (os's, databases, comm objs) are not solid, then how can we gaurentee delievry of a solid system by time - x, in very large systems, where foundation related bugs are inconsistent. This is just one of the many reasons why software delivery deadlines are so hard to meet.
Kent, please try to remember that a program must work - ie no B.S. as in the corporate / management world. Imagine all the programmers became corporates - I'll have a Jol writing down what must be done - but who then will do the REAL work.
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