Python handles globals badly.

[Mark Lawrence]

On 12/09/2015 17:29, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Sep 2015 05:11:46 +0100, Mario Figueiredo <marfig at gmx.com>
> declaimed the following:
>
>> On 12-09-2015 03:35, Mark Lawrence wrote:
>>>
>>> Ada took over from CORAL in the UK, at least in military projects.  It
>>> was also used in the aircraft industry. My old work mates tell me that
>>> its completely died a death, to be replaced by C++.  Someone please
>>> remind me never to fly again.
>>
>> Alright. But then someone should probably have reminded you that a long
>> time ago.
>>
>> Maybe you missed it when an Ada integer overflow bug produced one of the
>> most expensive software bugs in history by crashing the Ariane 501
>> rocket and its 4 cluster sattelites payload.
>>
>
> 	As I recall, the software did exactly what it was supposed to do in
> that situation...
>
> 	But no one had tested the algorithm with the rate of change the Ariane
> 5 could produce -- so an algorithm that was developed for, and safe with,
> the smaller Ariane suddenly went "something's wrong -- abandon ship"
>
> 	Nothing inherent in the language...
>

Well if the backup system that took over when the primary system gave up 
the ghost had used a different algorithm, and had been tested for an 
appropriate range of inputs, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  It 
didn't.  The rest is history, and very expensive history at that.

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence