The solution to the software reliability crisis is to abandon the Turing Computing Model and adopt a deterministic, non-algorithmic, implicitly parallel, synchronous and reactive software model. This model is based on the notion that almost all unforeseen (and unpreventable by syntactic debuggers) bugs are due to erroneous temporal expectations within computer programs. Timing is the critical element of computing that is missing from the Turing Computing Model. And it's not a matter of providing clock objects for use in certain time-dependent applications. Timing is critical at the instruction level because it allows us to determine the invariant temporal signature of a program and sound an alarm whenever a deviation is detected. Software should be such that it should be possible to determine whether any two events (operations) within a program are either concurrent or sequential under various conditions. This sort of temporal determinism will enhance security and reliability by many orders of magnitude if not cure the problem once and for all. If you're serious about finding a solution to the parallel programming crisis that is also a solution to the reliability problem, check out the links below. It's free info. Take it or leave it.

How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis
Parallel Computing: The End of the Turing Madness
Why Software Is Bad and What We Can Do to Fix It

The jest of it is that we must reinvent the computer. We are using essentially the same model that Babbage invented more than 150 years ago, the thread concept. It's time to change.

Of course, humans cannot think of everything, but with the right software model and the right tools, we will be able to. For the same reason that we use tools to perform complex calculations flawlessly, calculations that we use to have an extremely hard time doing reliably manually. We don't have the right software model in which to construct rock-solid applications because we are not thinking outside the box. We are addicted to our way of doing things.

I defend the hypothesis that the two major crises that afflict the computer industry (unreliability and low productivity) are due to our having adopted the Turing Machine as the de facto computing model in the last century. The thread concept (algorithm) is fundamentally flawed and the use of multithreading in multicore processors exacerbates the productivity and reliability problems by at least an order of magnitude. The only way to solve the crisis is to switch to a non-threaded, non-algorithmic, syncrhonous (deterministic), reactive and implicitly parallel model.

The big surprise in all this is that the solution to the crisis is not rocket science. It is based on a simple parallelizing concept that has been in use for decades. We already use it to simulate parallelism in video games, simulations and cellular automata. Use two buffers; while processing buffer A, fill buffer B with all the objects to be processed during next cycle. When buffer A is done, swap buffers and repeat the cycle. Two buffers are used to prevent racing conditions and ensure robust timing. No threads, no fuss and the resulting code is deterministic. We just need to take the concept down to the instruction level within the processor itself and adopt a synchronous reactive software model. It's not rocket science.

Folks, the days of Turing, Babbage and Lady Ada are soon coming to an end. It's time to wake up and abandon the flawed ideas of the baby-boomer generation and forge a new future. The boomers were wildly successful but this is a new age, the age of massive parallelism and super complex programs. The boomers need to retire and pass the baton to a new generation of computists. Sorry but that's the way I see it.

Outsourcing was not a problem in the 80s because Silicon Valley could do it cheaper that everybody else in those days. And the reason that they could do it cheaper is because they were riding on the crest of a revolutionary wave that they started. Lately, the has begun to dissipate and SV's superior technology can no longer give it an edge because it doesn't exist anymore. As I wrote elsewhere, SV needs a new revolution because that's what it feeds on. So, what's the next big thing? Massively parallel machines that are cheap and super easy to program. That's what. SV needs to be the first to come out with a solution to the parallel programming crisis and the first to exploit it. Otherwise, they're doomed. Ghost Valley will be their new name, a real bummer.

How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis

...better and richer than before. Silicon Valley was born from a revolution that was fueled by fast and cheap semiconductors. Revolution is also what sustained the Valley. Now this first computer revolution is winding down (you can't f*ck with Moore's law and walk away to brag about it), Silicon Valley needs to prepare for the next big one. If the next big revolution does not come soon, Silicon Valley will indeed die because that's what it feeds on. So what's the next big thing? Super fast and massively parallel computers that are cheap and super easy to develop applications for. If Silicon Valley can crack this puppy, it will be downhill again for another ten to fiifteen years.

But nobody knows how to make parallel programming easy, you say. Well, that's where you're wrong. The solution has been staring us in the face for years but the baby boomer generation who gave us the first revolution and who still control the industry, don't want to hear it. Too bad. Crash and burn is what Silicon Valley will do if they don't replace the old guard with better and more agile brains.

How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis

Regardless of all the money they have supposedly wasted, NASA has enriched our lives in more ways than its critics can imagine. The moon and Mars missions were priceless. Those Hubble images alone are worth every penny. And they did it all with one of the most primitive, dangerous and expensive transportation technologies known to mankind, rocket propulsion. And that there is NASA's biggest problem. No other country is going to surpass the US in space exploration because they are all struggling against the same brick wall.

Rest assured that we are not going to colonize the Moon, let alone the solar system and the star systems beyond with a bunch of clunky rockets. Rocket science may look cool but it’s way overrated. Fortunately for space fans, a breakthrough in our understanding of motion is about to change all that.

A new analysis of the causality of motion leads to the conclusion that we are immersed in energy, lots and lots of it. Normal matter moves in an immense, crystal-like lattice of energetic particles without which neither gravity, nor electromagnetism, nor even motion would be possible. Soon we’ll use this knowledge to build vehicles that can move at enormous speeds and negotiate right angle turns without slowing down and without incurring damage due to inertial effects. Floating sky cities impervious to earthquakes, tsunamis and bad weather, New York to Beijing in minutes, Earth to Mars in hours; that’s the future of energy and travel.

Physics: The Problem With Motion

We all love Asimov’s dream of a galactic empire. We want to colonize the entire solar system and many other star systems beyond. Going back to the Moon using our current rocket propulsion technology is not the way to do it. What would be the point of that? Is the moon made of unobtainium? No it's not. What NASA should be doing is spending a boatload of money on developing new and revolutionary space propulsion technologies. Even the space station is a complete waste of time and money from humanity’s point of view, the few who are benefiting from it notwithstanding.

We need a new foundational science of motion and propulsion. The current Newtonian paradigm is just not cutting it. It’s time for you rocket scientists to retire and give new brains with revolutionary ideas a turn at the wheel.

PS. Don't say nobody told you because I just did. :-)

Yes. In the end, it's all about the software. The safety requirements of the software should dictate the hardware design, not the other way around.

Of course, if all your sensors fail, you have a problem. But even then, the software should be smart enough to do react intelligently. One reason that they don't use many sensors in consumer products is that the software gets too complex and becomes unreliable. There should be as many sensors as possible. Pressure sensitive sensors on the pedal should tell the software that the driver is no longer pressing the pedal. Also, if the driver is pushing the brake pedal while the gas pedal sensor is reporting pressure, it should be a signal that something is wrong and to decelerate and even disable the car if the condition persists.

The gas pedal program should be intelligent enough to notice a malfunction like a sticky pedal and react accordingly. Mechanical failure is a given because of wear and tear and other factors. Software should never fail.

Software is bad because, unlike hardware, deterministic timing is not an inherent part of it. Computer programs are based on the Turing Computing Model. The TCM has nothing to say about timing other than the inherent sequentiality of operations. Read Why Software Is Bad and What We Can Do to Fix it and How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis if you're interested in solving this crisis once and for all.

Our basic algorithmic computing model has not changed since Charles Babbage. It's time for the industry and academia to wake up. What is needed is a non-algorithmic, synchronous and reactive model. I hope the auto industry (and everybody else who writes software and build computers) takes this to heart because these problems are going to happen again and again. And the cost is going to skyrocket.

Keep your ears and eyes open. It won't be much longer.

The breakthrough is closer than you think. Rocket propulsion is stupidly primitive and will soon be history.

Is this the same Baez who once wrote:

I would prefer to say that there are infinitely many "nows", but no one "now" that is any better than the rest. In special or general relativity, we can define a "now" to be a spacelike hypersurface - or more technically, a Cauchy surface. In one "now", I am typing this article while sitting at my desk on a hot summer morning in Riverside. In another, I am asleep on an airplane flying to Portugal. In most of them, I don't exist.

(Source)

Baez is like a pot arguing against kettles. LOL.

Space exploration is really cool but there are good reasons to believe that spending money on more rocket propulsion systems will be money wasted. It’s not just because rockets are an extremely expensive, limited and dangerous form of space transportation but because almost every form of transportation and energy production on planet Earth will be obsolete in the not too distant future. Let's face it. We will not colonize the solar system let alone the star systems beyond with a bunch of primitive rockets.

We are on the verge of a revolution in physics. A new analysis of the causality of motion leads to the conclusion that we are immersed in energy, lots and lots of it. Normal matter moves in an immense lattice of energetic particles without which motion itself would be impossible. Soon we’ll have vehicles that can move at enormous speeds and negotiate right angle turns without slowing down and without incurring damage due to inertial effects. Floating sky cities impervious to earthquakes, tsunamis and bad weather, New York to Beijing in minutes, Earth to Mars in hours; that’s the future of energy and travel. Read Physics: The Problem with Motion if you're interested in a novel and truly revolutionary understanding of motion.

Interesting article. It's funny but, all along, I always assumed that curiosity was a part of the definition of intelligence. If it exists in humans and animals, then that's all the evidence that we need in order to know that it can be programmed into a machine. The truth is that an intelligent program must learn and learning is impossible without curiosity. Here's why. If you look at knowledge as a big tree with many branches and leaves, learning consists of adding new branches (big and small) and leaves to the tree. The sub-program that goes around the tree adding new leaves and branches while pruning others as needed is none other than the curiosity module or algorithm. Just a thought.

There are excellent reasons to believe that having a correct foundational model of movement will unleash an age of free energy and extremely fast transportation. It will be an age where vehicles have no need of wheels, move silently at enormous speeds with no visible means of propulsion and negotiate right-angle turns without slowing down. An analysis of the causality of motion leads to the conclusion that we are immersed in an immense lattice of energetic particles. Soon, we will develop technologies to tap into this energy for propulsion and energy production. Placing satellites in orbit will be a thing of the past because we'll build legions of self-propelling vehicles that can maintain a fixed (or changing) position relative to the surface of the earth without having to be in orbit. Floating sky cities, New York to Beijing in minutes, Earth to Mars in hours. That's the future of energy and travel.

Physics: The Problem with Motion