Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

[Joachim Durchholz]

Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> The post at that url writes  about the culture of the Ariane team, but
> I would say  that it's even a more fundamental  problem of our culture
> in general: we build brittle  stuff with very little margin for error.
> Granted, it would  be costly to increase physical  margin,

Which is exactly why the margin is kept as small as possible.
Occasionally, it will be /too/ small.

Anybody seen a car model series, every one working perfectly from the 
first one?
 From what I read, every new model has its small quirks and 
"near-perfect" gotchas. The difference is just that you're not allowed 
to do that in expensive things like rockets (which is, among many other 
things, one of the reasons why space vehicles and aircraft are so d*mn 
expensive: if something goes wrong, you can't just drive them on the 
nearest parking lot and wait for maintenance and repair...)

 > but in this
> case, adopting a point of  view more like _robotics_ could help.  Even
> in case of hardware failure, there's  no reason to shut down the mind;
> just go on with what you have.

As Steve wrote, letting a rocket carry on regardless isn't a good idea 
in the general case: it would be a major disaster if it made it to the 
next coast and crashed into the next town. Heck, it would be enough if 
the fuel tanks leaked, and the whole fuel rained down on a ship 
somewhere in the Atlantic - most rocket fuels are toxic.

Regards,
Jo