[fpc-other] Fwd: A question or two regarding the FPC

[Richard Ward]

>
> fpclist at silvermono.co.za wrote:
>
>> .... I remarked that the inlay would now be useless, but the  
>> dentist's
>> reply was "no, it's okay, it happens quite often. Just can't  
>> restart the
>> program or the milling will stop".
>>
>> When I peeked at the back of the Windows box, I was quite surprised  
>> to find a
>> Siemens logo!
>>
>> Also, a few weeks later, my inlayed tooth required a root treatment.
>>
>> IMO, A good programmer using FPC and Linux will produce a more  
>> stable product
>> than the same programmer using anything (MSVS, Delphi, DotNet,  
>> whatever) and
>> running in Windows. By the way, I have nothing against MS or  
>> Windows. I think
>> that MS has done a pretty good job since NT4, mostly thanks to Dave  
>> Cutler
>> and his team (ex Digital VMS OS architect - is that why NT was more  
>> stable
>> than 95, cause it's based on Unix?). Apart from poorly written  
>> software,
>> poorly written device driver are the major cause of Windows OS  
>> crashes. Of
>> course viruses and trojans etc don't help either.
>>
>> Anyway, In my opinion and experience, I think that Free Pascal is  
>> suitable for
>> mission critical work and yes the system as a whole must comply.  
>> The OS, the
>> hardware the software. Redundancy must also be factured in. Most  
>> embedded
>> device have a hardware watchdog that will reset the device when  
>> required.
>
> We utilized a lot of Siemens equipment for refinery shutdown systems  
> for European clients.   But we ended up using discrete hardwired  
> logic modules (AND/OR gates) instead of programmable logic  
> controllers and using PC's just wasn't in the picture.   Clients  
> always ask if they can use their PC's to control their processes and  
> vendors often give in and start marketing something to give them a  
> perceived edge in sales.  { Kind of like how the presidential  
> election politics works here in the U.S. }   In any case, you can  
> get into trouble and the customers usually learn for themselves the  
> hard way.
>
> I agree that I would use FPC for non life or death critical software  
> development, but that is my opinion before doing any real  
> investigation of how FPC is put together.   Of course, I would have  
> a much more difficult time trying to see if Windows or Mac OS X, or  
> Delphi were suitable because just for the fact of them being closed  
> products, you have many more obstacles to the ultimate truth.
>
> I do know that formal FPC releases go through considerable testing  
> because when I was discussing with Jonas about getting an iPhone  
> release out, he mentioned there was no easy way to automate the  
> testing.   In my  ignorance, I suggested we could just do them  
> manually whereupon he responded that there are many more tests than  
> can be done manually.   I forget the number he quoted but it was a  
> lot.

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