Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

[Terry Reedy]

"Scott McIntire" <mcintire_charlestown at comcast.net> wrote in message
news:MoEkb.821534$YN5.832338 at sccrnsc01...
> There was a nice example from one of the ILC 2003 talks about a
Europian
> Space Agency rocket exploding with a valueable payload. My
understanding was
> that there was testing, but maybe too much emphasis was placed the
static
> type checking of the language used to control the rocket. The end
result was
> a run time arithmetic overflow which the code intepreted as "rocket
off
> course". The rocket code instructions in this event were to self
destruct.
> It seems to me that the Agency would have fared better if they just
used
> Lisp - which has bignums - and relied more on regression suites and
less on
> the belief that static type checking systems would save the day.
>
>  I'd be interested in hearing more about this from someone who knows
the
> details.

 I believe you are referring to the first flight of the Ariane 5
(sp?).  The report of the investigating commission is on the web
somewhere and an interesting read.  They identified about five
distinct errors. Try google.

Terry