The Real Risks of Artificial Intelligence
Incidents from the early days of AI research are instructive in the current AI environment.
David Lorge Parnas
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The Risks of Stopping Too Soon
Good software design is never easy, but stopping too soon makes the job more difficult.
Which Is Riskier: OS Diversity or OS Monopoly?
It is computer science "folk wisdom" that our computer systems, particularly the networks, are unnecessarily vulnerable because so many of our systems are either made by Microsoft, highly dependent on Microsoft software, or required to interact with Microsoft software. Many see this as a single point of failure, an Achilles’ heel. Analogies are drawn to […]
Licensing Software Engineers in Canada
Such diverse professions as medicine, law, and engineering are self-regulating. In each of these fields: Practitioners deal directly with the general public, most of whom cannot determine whether or not a self-proclaimed expert is qualified to provide the required service. Proper practice requires the practitioner understand an organized body of knowledge and have learned how […]
Inside Risks: Ten Myths About Y2K Inspections
The Y2K problem has given rise to a few statements that sound like unprofessional urban folklore.
Software aspects of strategic defense systems
A former member of the SDIO Panel on Computing in Support of Battle Management explains why he believes the “Star Wars” effort will not achieve its stated goals.
A generalized control structure and its formal definition
A new programming language control structure as well as an improved approach to a formal definition of programming languages are presented. The control structure can replace both iteration and conditional structures. Because it is a semantic generalization of those structures, a single statement using the new control structure can implement the functions of loops, conditionals, and also programs that would require several conventional constructs. As a consequence of this increased capability, it is possible to write algorithms that are simpler, more efficient, and more clearly correct than those that can be written with earlier structured-programming control structures. In order to provide a precise definition of the new constructs, a new version of relational semantics, called LD-relations is presented. An algebra of these relations is developed and used to define the meaning of the new constructs. A short discussion of program development and the history of control structures is included.
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