dictionary

[Hendrik van Rooyen]

 "Steve Holden" <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote:

> 
> I don't ever remember programming to cope with equipment failure,
> however. Did you make that bit up?

Not at the bit level in my case - but I do remember doing silly things 
like multiplying after a divide (all integer arithmetic) to make sure the 
answer was right.

And we routinely had a checksum record at the end of all files that one
would check when reading in - it was made by adding everything in every
record as a big binary number - almost a kind of vertical parity. And it 
caught stuff out too.  Then you would just re run, and the error would 
often go away.

It has left me permanently scarred.

- Hendrik