-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Eleanor McHugh wrote:
|
| Much kudos to your friend. Twelve years ago I did the same thing in VB
| for helicopters and whilst it was pushing the hardware at that time, it
| was still usable. Of course these days most mobile phones have more
| computational grunt and memory than that :)

But the mobile phones aren't necessarily as reliable as, say, the
hardware and operating system of an avionics system.

Considering that an operating system is an abstraction, and that
abstractions, more often than not, are leaky, I contend that specialized
hardware doesn't use much of an operating system, thusly eliminating a
large set of undefined (rather, unprovable as per Godel) states,
correct? Only providing the bare minimum of APIs needed for the software
on the application level to function properly, or dispersing with
operating systems entirely, working on the bare metal (I think that the
Apollo project computers functioned like that, but correct me if I'm wrong.)

In my experience, the more complex software gets, the more error-prone
it is. I notice that in my PDA, which performs rock solid, only needing
a driver upgrade for SD cards above 64 MB (well, at the time this thing
was made, cards larger than 64MB weren't widely available yet; which
shows that not all requirements can be gathered beforehand), my old
smart phone which failed on every possible situation, and all the
operating systems I've used with some depth so far.

So, isn't it part of the requirement gathering process, or the design
process, during software engineering to cut down on unnecessary
complexities and abstractions, too?

And that influences interface design for the user, too, I've noticed.
After all, the guidelines of the US Air Force for user interfaces
compose a 486 page book:

"From 1984 to 1986, the U.S. Air Force compiled existing usability
knowledge into a single, well-organized set of guidelines for its user
interface designers. I was one of several people who advised the project
(in a small way), and thus received a copy of the final 478-page book in
August 1986."

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050117.html

Hm, it seems to always come down to near-perfect requirements during design.

- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan

Don't stop with your first draft.
~            - The Elements of Programming Style (Kernighan & Plaugher)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAkgHAyEACgkQbtAgaoJTgL9T/ACfbW68rjje9gJR4vKKEEjyLuem
evwAnRjmnWbJeZCO4yi5gcd3ALNv8maU
=oYsQ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----