wrote: > .... I remarked that the inlay would now be useless, but the > dentist's > reply was "no, it's okay, it happens quite often. Just can't > restart the > program or the milling will stop". > > When I peeked at the back of the Windows box, I was quite surprised > to find a > Siemens logo! > > Also, a few weeks later, my inlayed tooth required a root treatment. > > IMO, A good programmer using FPC and Linux will produce a more > stable product > than the same programmer using anything (MSVS, Delphi, DotNet, > whatever) and > running in Windows. By the way, I have nothing against MS or > Windows. I think > that MS has done a pretty good job since NT4, mostly thanks to Dave > Cutler > and his team (ex Digital VMS OS architect - is that why NT was more > stable > than 95, cause it's based on Unix?). Apart from poorly written > software, > poorly written device driver are the major cause of Windows OS > crashes. Of > course viruses and trojans etc don't help either. > > Anyway, In my opinion and experience, I think that Free Pascal is > suitable for > mission critical work and yes the system as a whole must comply. > The OS, the > hardware the software. Redundancy must also be factured in. Most > embedded > device have a hardware watchdog that will reset the device when > required. We utilized a lot of Siemens equipment for refinery shutdown systems for European clients. But we ended up using discrete hardwired logic modules (AND/OR gates) instead of programmable logic controllers and using PC's just wasn't in the picture. Clients always ask if they can use their PC's to control their processes and vendors often give in and start marketing something to give them a perceived edge in sales. { Kind of like how the presidential election politics works here in the U.S. } In any case, you can get into trouble and the customers usually learn for themselves the hard way. I agree that I would use FPC for non life or death critical software development, but that is my opinion before doing any real investigation of how FPC is put together. Of course, I would have a much more difficult time trying to see if Windows or Mac OS X, or Delphi were suitable because just for the fact of them being closed products, you have many more obstacles to the ultimate truth. I do know that formal FPC releases go through considerable testing because when I was discussing with Jonas about getting an iPhone release out, he mentioned there was no easy way to automate the testing. In my ignorance, I suggested we could just do them manually whereupon he responded that there are many more tests than can be done manually. I forget the number he quoted but it was a lot.