On 2009-10-11, Hendrik van Rooyen <hend...@microcorp.co.za> wrote: > > It is often necessary, in long running applications, to set up > loops that you would really like to run until the end of time. > - the equivalent of a "serve forever" construct. Then while > True is the obvious way to spell it.
Once upon a time I was working on the software requirements specifications for a missile launcher for the US Navy. In the section on the system's scheduler task I wrote something like this: The scheduler shall consist of an infinite loop that executes the following: 1. Call this function. 2. Call that function. [...] The review team (mainly from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab) told me I couldn't put an infinite loop in the requirements document. I replied, "OK, when or under what circumstances do you want the launcher to stop working?" They said that I misunderstood their comment. I can (and indeed must) have an infinite loop in the software. I just can't put the phrase "infinite loop" in the document. They explained that ship captains get to review these documents. Ship captains all took a year of undergrad FORTRAN programming and therefore believe that an infinite loop is a bad thing. I changed the text to read something like this: The secheduler shall repeatedly execute the following until the system is powered off or reset: 1. Call this function. 2. Call that function. [...] Everybody was happy. Tax dollars at work... -- Grant -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list