Having been a helicopter field service rep for 25 year, including working
two prototype programs, I can attest "school knowledge" does NOT equate to
common sense ...
Dale C.
Subject: Re: Traction Control and Bench Racing..
Neil,
Yes, the computer/software thing is worrisome for a number of reasons. One
guy, Henry Petroski, who studies civil engineering failures, has identified
a 30-year cycle when bridges and other structures start failing, even
relatively new ones. Apparently what happens is that the guy who initially
develops the design bases and formulas and uses limiting, but necessary,
assumptions concerning the solutions of the equations, materials, conditions
of use, etc. As time passes, other people continue applying the original
design bases and formulas, but forget or ignore the original assumptions,
exceed the validity of the original design bases, and things start to fall
down.
I saw this happen once when a guy made a perfectly logical assumption to do
an analytical comparison of alternate space propulsion concepts. Trouble
was, another guy came along afterwards and used the "comparison" results to
design a "specific" propulsion system which failed because the logic that
was okay for the comparison was actually illogical for the real world
specific design. When that kind of mistake sneaks in it often doesn't get
recognized until something bad happens.
With so many people using "canned" software to design things and very few
people using back-of-the envelope calculations, checking worst case
assumptions, and a using a little imagination and insight with pencil and
paper to check validity, I fear we could have lots of future failures.
Lance
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