Computer Software Programs: Software errors – If the computer miscount

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Software errors – If the computer miscount – shz.de

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Computer systems are not immune to mistakes – this has often been human error .

Photo:
Daniel Reinhardt

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The Millennium is already behind us, but there are signs of a concomitant Apocalypse are still clearly remembered. If the computer systems collapse, shut down public life? But happened is nothing – because it was just taken in time, in many cases

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irregularities in the calendar could also result in future difficulties if they are not taken into account. A deviation from the 365-day rule is every four years pushed February 29. But leap years had no reason to think up new horror scenarios, says Dirk Nowotka of the University of Kiel: "The leap year is not a problem." Millennium and leap year - two completely different challenges for the art and its creators.

The problem is that software "fed" with information that needs to be prepared for specifics. The so-called millennium bug it had been an error in the date format. The software developers of the 60s and 70s have underestimated their technology: "Software holds in principle forever," said computer science professor Nowotka. "It was not initially clear that code is reused frequently." There is regular maintenance, expansions or restructurings, remedy the weaknesses again - all operations that "normal" are, says Nowotka. Software is error prone innately, he says: "In particular with very complex systems to avoid mistakes and weaknesses is difficult and expensive."

In addition, memory was expensive at that time. In order to save capacity, the programmers had dispensed with their data account on the first two digits of the year. From 1988, for example, so was 88. So would the 31.12.1999 one year change in computer systems although occurred at night, we would certainly landed instead of 2000 in 1900, one would not readjusted in time.

leap years, however are been taken into account in programs when setting up calendaring and functions because of their regularity from the beginning, explains Nowotka. When - timely in most cases - solving the Millennium problem other errors also have been eradicated. Among other things, the false assumption that not all century years - like 1900 - leap years, the systems brought in some places by today

did not consider in the programs 29 February 2008 put some of Microsoft's MP3 players. " Zune "lame - they expected 365 instead of 366 days and acknowledged on December 31 their service. 2012 was due to a leap year error from the GPS positioning function of some of the navigation systems manufacturer TomTom. If in a leap year today go wrong a little, it would already have been a "a very bad software" so Nowotka

But that is yet to come -. Or not? The so-called Unix time, which is the basis for the era in many systems, counts from 1 January 1970, the elapsed seconds. On January 19, 2038 at 03:14:08 PM is so final - the 32-digit counter is full. And then what? "The theme in 2038 is in the room," says Nowotka. But: "We can check off it. It is trivial from computer vision. "As of today, the systems stood prior problems. They would, however, only true if you umginge negligence with the topic. There are different ways to solve the problem before it takes effect: increase the counter or manage the system time to reimplement for example. "You just have to ranmachen" says the computer scientist

This is the way of the software things. Again and again would have systems questioned and replaced and expanded parts. These alterations would be carried out under the hood, for example, when updating explains Nowotka: "The changeover happened largely insidious and without the user's knowledge."

of Anja Christiansen

created on 29.Feb.2016
| 19:35