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From: dms@mit-hermes.ARPA (David M. Siegel)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: What I miss in micro-processors (fairly long)
Message-ID: <2499@mit-hermes.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 30-Sep-85 23:56:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-herm.2499
Posted: Mon Sep 30 23:56:23 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 07:13:46 EDT
Organization: The MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 25


   From: phil@unisoft.UUCP (phil ronzone)
   Date: 25 Sep 85 07:37:44 GMT

   Shucks - but I still CAN'T see how much the poor pilot in an F16 with an
   Ada programmed fire-control computer is going to be as a Mig-27 bears down
   on him, and right when he hears the lock-on buzz to fire his own missile --

	Ada runtime error 498: subscript i value 23 out of range for array x (20)

True, this would be of little use to the pilot. But if his little
black box recording the status of the various systems on the aircraft
were recovered, the run time checking could reveal useful information
for fixing the problem.

Another point worth mentioning, when an out-of-bounds array reference
is made you can't be sure that your os will respond "bus error".
Instead, your program might just give the wrong answer. These kinds of
problems can easily go undetected.

-Dave

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