Device drivers (and bug-free code)

[Dick Dunn]

> Well, the ideal way is not to write any bugs.
> 
> Of course, we sometimes tend to fall short of the ideal...

Well, now, whose fault is that?  Interestingly, the ideal way has actually
been seriously suggested...some number of years back, it was suggested in a
paper by Harlan Mills that, essentially, bugs are little more than an
unnecessary annoyance:

	It is an old myth that programming must be an error prone, cut-
	and-try process of frustration and anxiety.  The new reality is
	that you can learn to consistently write programs which are correct
	_ab_initio_, and prove to be error free in their debugging and
	use.

(I carefully checked the above paragraph for accurate transcription from
the original paper.  I leave it as an exercise for the interested reader to
find the grammatical errors in the paragraph [four, by my count] and draw
any appropriate conclusions about the validity of Mills' premises.)
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
   ...I'm not cynical - just experienced.