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Date:	Sun, 4 Jan 2004 00:44:04 PST8
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	< "scoug-programming@scoug.com" > scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: QA equals testing, Part One:Detection

Content Type: text/plain

Peter Skye writes:
"...How about the idiosyncracies of file systems? Suppose I
create "FOO." on a bunch of different file systems. Some will
use the name "FOO." and some will use the name "FOO". And
"long file names" are great until you actually use some
l-o-n-g ones because different file systems have different
maximum lengths. ..."

If you grasp the fact that programming languages are
specification languages, then if you can program an
idiosyncrasy, you can specify it. It's the same code. As a
corollary if you can't specify it, you can't program it.

Now I admired all your examples which implied that you could
program but not spec them. That implies that you don't
recognize or understand that they are the same when they
use the same language.

If you want to say that you can neither spec nor program
something you don't understand, I don't know of anyone who
would challenge you. I certainly wouldn't. Neither would Bob.
However, if you do understand it and you can't spec it, you
can't program it. That will only occur if an input state has an
unpredictable or non-logical output state.

Now on considering all the idiosyncrasies that you mention, if
you had the source code, i.e. the specifications, for each I
guarantee that you could more easily change it to end the
idiosyncrasies doing it my way than the way you currently
use. In fact it would probably take less time than what you
have already spent in working around them.

I keep telling you, apparently without it registering properly,
that it's a byproduct of logic programming to which you can
upgrade any programming language implementation, not just
some language I created for my convenience like SL/I.

If you don't accept that SQL is an HLL that goes directly from
specifications to executable, then we have to work on that. If
you do accept it, then you must also accept that the columns,
tables, and conditions in the SELECT, FROM, and WHERE
clauses in SQL can appear in any order. You also must accept
that the SQL query manager supplies an order upon them in
the executable form of the query.

This ought to register with you that within any complete set
of specifications by definition contain everything needed for
analysis, design, and contruction. They do if you perform
them manually. They do if you automate them in software.

Now if you just like to do and redo work you don't need to do,
then that's your choice. However, don't act like you have to
do them. That not doing them is some kind of unnatural act.
If so, then millions of people perform that act daily without
seeing anything unnatural about it at all. I would suspect that
you have also.

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