Methodology for the development of systems based on learning objects (ePub)

While research has made interesting progress in formulating and developing techniques and methods for solving problems in software engineering, software development is considered a chaotic and unsupervised process, but not in the professional practice of creating computer systems. Recommendations made where applicable.

The consequences of this lack of control are immediate and evident in the number of disasters caused by planning errors in terms of financial, material and human losses. To further illustrate the situation, we present some of these disasters:

In 1996, the Ariane 5 rocket with four satellites exploded after launch at an altitude of 3,700 meters. The cause of the tragedy was an untested "parameter bug" in the ADA code responsible for converting 64-bit floats to 16-bit integers, a subroutine reused from Ariane 4. The software bug cost more than $500 million, and after nearly 10 years of operation, the total damage was estimated at about $1.8 billion.

Another industry that fell victim to software vulnerabilities was air transport, and in this case the losses were heavy, as shown in the graphs below: Bangalore 1990, 97; Mont-Saint-Odile 1991, 87; 1992 Warsaw, 1 dead and 54 injured. A well-known mistake in air transport is not taking into account the impact of water planning.