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> That graph shows the probability of the whole system working correctly (aka as the user expect) if each component is 99% correct. Yes, it shows that. But what's the point of showing it? It insinuates is that there is a problem here. There isn't. Real systems have 99%+ uptime, or they aren't deployed. With the software that we actually use, we're to the far left of that graph, not anywhere near the right. > You overlook the failures. Each big or small failure count in that graph. Eh, not really. It's not statistics based on real data, it's a hypothesis. No real-world failure shows up in it. Again, there are a hundreds if not thousands of processes running on your average Linux box, but failure rates are astonishingly low. Yet, Linux is the total opposite of "the right thing". I don't see you arguing with that, because you can't argue with it. It's the facts! Not doing "the right thing" works. Doing "the right thing" generally doesn't, because that software never ships on time. All the beautiful operating systems dreamed up inside of ivory towers never took the market. It's not because of "marketing" or "conditioning", but because that software is not actually better for the end user. It lacks features, it's more expensive, it's late. It then doesn't matter if it's simple. |
To reason about reliability and its impact on costs.
> Real systems have 99%+ uptime, or they aren't deployed.
Uptime is not correctness.
> failure rates are astonishingly low [...] > I don't see you arguing with that, because you can't argue with it. It's the facts!
No, it's your perception.
These are facts:
- https://www.cvedetails.com/
- https://www.debian.org/Bugs/
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/query.cgi
- https://bugzilla.kernel.org/describecomponents.cgi
- https://bugzilla.gnome.org/query.cgi
- https://bugs.kde.org/describecomponents.cgi
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/describecomponents.cgi
- https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list
do a search in any of these issue tracker and you will be overwhelmed with facts.
Now, I agree that, with huge efforts and costs, over decades many developers and companies managed to go beyond the 99% correctness on some projects.
But with simpler systems and designs, the cost of reaching such level of quality (that most of software do not even aim to reach) would be a tiny fraction.
> Not doing "the right thing" works. Doing "the right thing" generally doesn't
I wonder if you read the article at all.
I proposed a third style: simplex sigillum veri.