From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 24211 invoked from network); 10 Jul 2021 12:01:42 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 10 Jul 2021 12:01:42 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 9CB4294550; Sat, 10 Jul 2021 22:01:38 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D223893D85; Sat, 10 Jul 2021 22:00:30 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 10CA993D85; Sat, 10 Jul 2021 22:00:26 +1000 (AEST) X-Greylist: delayed 528 seconds by postgrey-1.36 at minnie.tuhs.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2021 22:00:25 AEST Received: from relay05.pair.com (relay05.pair.com [216.92.24.67]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 15FB393D3C for ; Sat, 10 Jul 2021 22:00:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: from orac.inputplus.co.uk (unknown [84.51.128.33]) by relay05.pair.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A5201A2C39 for ; Sat, 10 Jul 2021 07:51:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from orac.inputplus.co.uk (orac.inputplus.co.uk [IPv6:::1]) by orac.inputplus.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22FDC21C4E for ; Sat, 10 Jul 2021 12:51:35 +0100 (BST) To: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list From: Ralph Corderoy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-reply-to: <202107071828.167ISgdN2686558@darkstar.fourwinds.com> References: <06737C14-1122-4832-BCAA-A37B242F69E4@me.com> <202107071828.167ISgdN2686558@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2021 12:51:35 +0100 Message-Id: <20210710115135.22FDC21C4E@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Subject: Re: [TUHS] The Unix shell: a 50-year view X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Hi, Jon Steinhart wrote: > In lectures these days, I'm asking the question "We haven't managed to > off more than a thousand or so people at a time with a software bug > yet so what's going to be software's Union Carbide Bhopal moment?" If buggy code rather than a single bug counts then the software model written over fifteen years by Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London, which has been instrumental in poor UK Government policy decisions on COVID-19 has easily topped more than a thousand deaths in the net tally. It was a single 15,000-line file of C, written by a non-programmer. Eventually, ic.ac.uk released a C++ version which had been worked on by Microsoft and other volunteers for a month so it could face the public. ‘For me the code is not a mess, but it’s all in my head, completely undocumented. Nobody would be able to use it... and I don’t have the bandwidth to support individual users.’ ― Neil Ferguson. Politician Steve Baker MP, a former senior programmer, has been critical of the public version and commissioned a review by Mike Hearn. A path to Hearn's paper starts at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1323897771510943745.html And another coder critique is at https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/ The numbers from Ferguson's original pre-release C program were presented by him to Number 10 and were instrumental in setting the UK on the path of lockdowns. ‘...lockdowns are the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years’ ― Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University. -- Cheers, Ralph.