Question(s)

[o1bigtenor]

On Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 4:54 PM Grant Edwards via Python-list
<python-list at python.org> wrote:
>
> On 2023-10-24, Dan Purgert via Python-list <python-list at python.org> wrote:
> > On 2023-10-24, o1bigtenor wrote:
> >> Greetings
> >>
> >> (Sorry for a nebulous subject but dunno how to have a short title for
> >> a complex question.)
> >> [...]
> >> Is there a way to verify that a program is going to do what it is
> >> supposed to do even before all the hardware has been assembled and
> >> installed and tested?
> >
> > In short, no.
> >
> > Reality is a mess, and even if you've programmed/perfectly/ to the
> > datasheets (and passed our unit-tests that are also based on those
> > datasheets), a piece of hardware may not actually conform to what's
> > written.  Maybe the sheet is wrong, maybe the hardware is faulty, etc.
>
> And the specified customer requirements are usually wrong too. Sure,
> the customer said it is supposed to do X, but what they actually
> needed was Y.
>
> And the protocol spec isn't quite right either.  Sure, it says "when A
> is received reply with B", but what everybody really does is slighty
> different, and you need to do what everybody else does, or the widget
> you're talking to won't cooperate.
>
> And floating point doesn't really work the way you think it
> does. Sometimes it does, close-enough, for the test-cases you happened
> to choose...
>
Fascinating - - - except here I get to wear almost all of the hats.
I'm putting together the hardware, I get to do the programming and I
will be running the completed equipment.

I am asking so that I'm not chasing my tail for inordinate amounts of time
- - - grin!

Interesting ideas so far.