[SystemSafety] Your Q on tools use

[RICQUE Bertrand (SAGEM DEFENSE SECURITE)]

Thanks for this answer.

This quite exactly my appreciation of the situation ...


Bertrand RICQUE
Program Manager, Optronics and Defense Division
 
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http://www.sagem-ds.com

 


-----Original Message-----
From: Stachour, Paul D CCS [mailto:Paul.Stachour at det-tronics.com] 
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2013 5:19 PM
To: RICQUE Bertrand (SAGEM DEFENSE SECURITE)
Subject: RE: Your Q on tools use 

Bernard,
    A personal answer (not for distribution) of your questions on tool use,
from my perspective. I have marked my notes with ">>".
Our product supports the "Function Block" language
specified by IEC 61131-3, with a number or additional Gates/FucntionBlocks
which we and our customers find useful.

 --The ideas and opinions expressed in this message
 --are solely those of the message originator(s). 
 --The opinions of the author(s) expressed
 --herein do not necessarily state or reflect those
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 --for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

Paul D. Stachour 
Software Quality Assurance 
Detector Electronics Corporation 
A UTC Fire & Security Company 
6901 West 110th Street, Bloomington, MN 55438 USA 
952-941-5665, x8409 
Paul.Stachour at det-tronics.com 
www.det-tronics.com 



-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety-bounces at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of RICQUE Bertrand (SAGEM DEFENSE SECURITE)
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2013 4:32 AM
To: systemsafety at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: [External] Re: [SystemSafety] Qualifying SW as "proven in use" [Measuring Software]

Dear all,

I would like to have your opinion on the following question.

Why do all these nice and fancy tools, such as SQALE and many others, are only available for ADA and C++ and not for the IEC61131-3 languages used in process and manufacturing industries ?

Is it because:
* These languages are not considered sufficiently "seriously safe" by "serious persons" to deserve academic works and tools ?
>> I know that we have 2 forms of some of the fuction blocks.
>> They are the "standard" ones, and the "Safe" ones.
>> The Safe ones will detect certain errors that the standard ones do not.
>> For example, a safe "ADD" will detect overflow, 
>> while the standard one will not.
>> 61131-3 standard is incomplete (my opinion) on sematics of FB.
* It is not possible to access these languages because they are proprietary artefacts not open to academic works ?
>> Yes, our langages and its extensions are propritary.
* The designers and suppliers of these languages don't allow access to the academic and software community ?
>> I suspect that access would be allowed under a non-disclosure.
>> I suspect that such would not be acceptable to the academics.
* The academic and software community don't identify the need ?
>> No data from me here.
* The final intended users are not sensitive to theissue ? 
>> Most of our end-users are not programmer types.
>> They don't get semantic defintions of our FBs.
>> They don't ask us to put such in user manuals.
* Competent enough to adress the issue ?
>> Suspect only a very few are competent.
>> Suspect almost no software engineers.
* Any work on the languages is useless because the OS below is even more unknown and not accessible ?
>> Diagree here. I can (somewhat) verify that ADD works OK,
>> even if don't have access to the undetrlying OS / HW.
>> I do such by writing test-cases similar to what HW
>> designers do to test their HW, including corner-cases.
* Anything else ?

>> Nope.

>> J'espere que cette est utile pour vous.

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