On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 8:25 AM, Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net> wrote:
"If three people died and the building burned down then the sprinkler system didn't work. It may have sprayed water, but it didn't *work*."
That's not true. =A0If it sprayed water in the manner it was designed to, then it worked.
That's like the old crack about ICBM interceptors. Why yes, our system performed swimmingly in the latest test achieving nine out of the ten criteria for success. Which criteria didn't it achieve? It missed the target.
Difference: the fire suppression system worked as designed, the ICBM didn't. That's kind of the whole point here. If you have something like an automobile that's designed to protect you against certain kinds of accidents, it isn't a failure if it does not protect you against an accident that is not reasonably within the protection envelope. For example, cars these days are designed to protect against many different types of impacts and provide survivability. It is a failure if my car is designed to protect against a head-on crash at 30MPH by use of engineered crumple zones and deploying air bags, and I get into such an accident and am killed regardless. However, if I fly my car into a bridge abutment at 150MPH and am instantly pulverized, I am not prepared to consider that a failure of the car. Likewise, if a freeway overpass slab falls on my car and crushes me as I drive underneath it, I am not going to consider that a failure of the car. There's a definite distinction between a system that fails when it is deployed and used in the intended manner, and a system that doesn't work as you'd like it to when it is used in some incorrect manner, which is really not a failure as the word is normally used. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.