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Re: Test question



On 06/04/2003 12:56 PM, Michael Edmiston wrote:

Answer with given assumptions:
....

I approve of M.E's approach.
-- He answered the question.
-- He documented the assumptions he made in
arriving at the answer, and thereby made
clear the range of validity of his answer.

This is the way to do things.

If you require an answer in a case outside this
range of validity, then you must re-ask the question
and make the requirements more explicit.

=====================

I find the question itself highly entertaining.

Behind a disarming smile it has sharp teeth.

It requires some out-of-the-box thinking just
to realize that the answer is highly dependent
on assumptions.

Table with some relevant numbers:
http://www.wimancorp.com/Default.ASP?Page=Gravity

I'll file this one away. It will help me explain
why it is so hard to build high-reliability systems.
Assumptions that are true under normal circumstances
may not be true in all circumstances.