RichardC (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on May 16, 2013 6:57 am wrote:
> Brendan (btrotter.delete@this.gmail.com) on May 16, 2013 12:29 am wrote:
>
> > Is it reasonable to expect competent developers to be able to handle that extra complexity when
> > it's beneficial? I guess this depends on how you define "competent". I'd say "it's definitely
> > reasonable" (it's not the 20th century anymore) but other people may have lower standards.
>
> See this paper http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-1.pdf
>
> Key quote from the conclusion: "non-trivial multi-threaded programs are incomprehensible
> to humans".

This is false, by counter example.

[...]

> It is certainly true that our relatively rigorous software engineering practice identified and fixed
> many concurrency bugs. But the fact that a problem as serious as a deadlock that locked up the
> system could go undetected for four years despite this practice is alarming. How many more such
> problems remain?

Programs have bugs. If that is being treated as some fantastic new discovery, then the author has no idea of the real world.