C Community's Cavalier Attitude On Software Reliability

[Martin Weitzel]

In article <15213 at bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff at bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
>I think what Bill Wolfe is getting at is this: C and UNIX derive from a
>milieu where admitting fallibility is not a sin because the "consumers"
>are programmers, whose competence, understanding and goodwill are
>assumed; and where explaining bugs up front is considered a plus,
>because it saves programmer time later on.
>
>By contrast, "big computer company" tradition emphasizes the *appearance*
>of infallibility -- never admit bugs up front because your competition
[rest deleted]

I'll tell an anecdote on this: One big german company (Siemens), which
steped into the UNIX business around 1984, had to offer unix courses
for their customers. A true unix guru wrote some kind of textbook for
the courses. It started with the two pages "advantages of unix" and
"disadvantages of unix".

The latter was canceled by the sales departement, because
"a Siemens product has no disadvantages".
-- 
Martin Weitzel, email: martin at mwtech.UUCP, voice: 49-(0)6151-6 56 83