Another aspect is making it impossible to assemble parts any way but the correct way. For example, you can write C code like this:
for (i = 0; i < 10; ++i);
do_something();
A colleague of mine, a very good programmer, was stymied by this for a full day. The next day I added a warning to my C compiler for it. As time went on, this warning became commonplace in other compilers.
But in D, I didn't make it a warning. I made in an error. A ; cannot be used to create an empty statement, that can only be done with { }. I still can't believe C/C++ have never made that an error.
Another one is:
if (a < b < c) ...
That doesn't do what one thinks it does. So in D it's an error.
D is better because so many unnecessary things in C and C++ are minefields, and instead of warning the user, they're just illegal. (All have ways of doing the equivalent if one really needs to.)
Oh it took a while until I noticed the extra ';' :- ) It'd likely have slipped past code review o.O
> impossible to assemble parts any way but the correct way
Hmm make me think about database constraints & foreign keys :- )
> As time went on, this warning became commonplace in other compilers
Nice that different languages can help each other become better :- )
> D is better because so many unnecessary things in C and C++ are minefields
I remember long ago when coding C++, we had to add a bunch of macros in each C++ class, to remove dangerous-by-default C++ auto generated things (like the copy constructor that copied pointers). I guess you know a lot about such things. D and Rust seems nice :- )
Hmm there's something similar in the SRS book by Google, they call it "failure domains" (I haven't read all of it though).
> Monitors: If the output is outside some preset bounds, the system is shut down
Maybe in software, becoming read-only can be a similar good idea, when something looks weird
> Deadman: A deadman is a hardware timer switch added to a computer system that shuts it down if it isn’t regularly reset.
This is something I'm planning to add to the software I'm developing :- )
It's forum / blog-comments software, and, in case the admins have been away for too long (maybe vacation for some weeks), the forum would become read-only, maybe even retroactively hide some risky comments & discussions, until they're back — so there's always humans around that can remove toxic troll comments and such things.
> Improving the quality of that component by a factor of 10 will get us there, but at a cost explosion of 10 times the price. But suppose we add in a backup component B, that also has a 10% failure rate. The odds of A and B both simultaneously failing are 10% of 10%, or 1%. This is achieved by a mere doubling of the cost instead of an order of magnitude increase
I think it's interesting that this at the same time, doubles the attack surface, for hackers? Although the failure risk gets down to 1%, now the hackers can try to break in into both A and B? Hmm. I wonder if there're any ways to avoid this tradeoff, ... Maybe there aren't, in the same way as it's going to be 2 x expensive, too
If you have an opportunity to hire someone with stellar talents, even if it isn't directly aligned with your business, hire them anyway.
Modify your business plan to capitalize (!) on those special talents. Even if you don't, there is the opportunity for unexpected synergy.
After all, I've applied many things I learned designing gearboxes to the D programming language.