Re: Success story with BlackBox

From: [at]} <Andreas>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 09:50:54 +0100

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Wojtek,

first of all let me clarify that I don't want to argue against
BlackBox. It is a good tool!

However, I think it is both, unprofessional and unfair to promote
BlackBox at the expense of a different tool. Especially If you
obviously do not know how to use the other tool (C++) appropriately.

> At around 11:46 a particular waveform was acquired
> (perhaps due to a power spike?) whose shape was not
> what we expected. The data processing procedure was not
> prepared for this, and the FOR loop index jumped out
> of the array bounds. An illegal memory location
> was accessed. The Bug has bitten us from behind.

Why not just use the class vector from the Standard Library instead of
an array? A vector allows you to access it's elements on two ways:

vector.at(idx)

Range checked access, throwing an error exception if idx is out of
range.

vector[idx]

Access without range checking.

Please not that there is a difference between being ABLE to use range
checking and being FORCED to use range checking! Personally I like to
have a choice.

  For example in graphics programming you have situations there you just
can't afford range checking. Not relying on range checking is one of
the more harmless things you do to optimize the inner loops ...

> I told this story to my friends here at the Brookhaven
> National Lab. They shook their heads in disbelief
> and went straight back to never-ending debugging
> of our C++ data analysis code. Our C++ code leaks
> memory and crashes for mysterious reasons which nobody
> hopes to understand. There is no prospect that it can ever
> get any better. In fact, our C++ code is only getting worse,
> as it keeps growing and accumulates bugs which nobody
> has patience to eradicate.

Unfortunately this tells us more about your friends than about C++.
There are some very good garbage collectors for C++. Because of
operator overloading they can be integrated seamlessly. Again you are
able to use a garbage collector but you are not forced to.

The problem with reliable software is not using one tool or the other.
The problem is knowing when and how to use the tool . Don't try
technological fixes for sociological problems ...

Best regards,
--Andreas


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Received on Fri Feb 14 2003 - 09:50:54 UTC