microcode, compilers, and supercomputer architecture

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Mon Apr 5 22:38:06 1999

On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Tony Duell wrote:

> > We don't need to bring moralizing into the discussion. Most of us already
> > relegate a lot of life's decisions, including some life-critical ones, to
> > computers every day.
> >
> > Or are you the kind of person that refuses to buy cars with antilock brake
> > systems?
>
> Well, I don't drive yet, but when I do, I sure as hell won't have a car
> with ABS.
>
> The reasons are that (a) I am not going to trust my life, and the lives
> of others to an undocumented system that could possibly fail, (b) a good
> driver can stop a car in a shorter distance than an ABS system can under
> some conditions and (c) if it does fail you have to use the brakes
> differently than you do with a working ABS system.

Are you sure of that, Tony. I seem to recall Stirling Moss and other
latter day GP drivers agreeing that an ABS system was superior to human
performance.
 
> No thanks. I'd rather trust my skill (and thus have to learn to do things
> properly) than trust a microprocessor.

Surely it fails safe.

                                                 - don
> >
>
> -tony
>
>
Received on Mon Apr 05 1999 - 22:38:06 BST