On Thursday, January 10, 2013 11:51:37 AM UTC-5, Tobias Bieniek wrote:
Have you ever developed any applications for either one of those platforms?

Quite the opposite. My background is in system software, from kernel up to the APIs called by application developers. So my perspective is different.. My career focus was on establishing the reliability of distributed systems inter-operating over multiple platforms, not web applications, more like the stuff you would find running in the back rooms on Wall Street and in another product on the back end of Dropbox.com There was a high value put on reliability.

I'm not a PNA developer, so I don't have a pony in this OS race. I'm an end user and I have the background to pose questions. Pardon my blind spots.


On Thursday, January 10, 2013 11:25:56 AM UTC-5, wrote:

An interesting analogy. The number of unmanned spacecraft losses from software issues is nothing short of spectacular,

My point is that NASA choose to freeze development of some software and hardware because they realized that fixing known defects could introduce more serious defects. "The devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't know". In that sense CE is more predictable than Android.

There's an awful lot of factors that have to come together to create a stable system, and very little substitute for intensive testing under diverse conditions. That's one thing that mass-market Android devices have in spades.

There is even more "testing under diverse conditions" when you consider that Android is derived from Linux and Linux shares DNA with unixes that predate Windows CE. That said, the best testing will only find a fraction of the lurking defects, and many defects encountered by end users will not be recognized as defects or reported. With that in mind, the way to create better code is to create fewer defects earlier in development. You can of course keep testing until you find no more defects, but that tells you nothing about the defects that your tests don't touch. Testing often produces false confidence and massive "testing" by end-users can yield a similar false confidence.


On Thursday, January 10, 2013 12:33:15 PM UTC-5, pcool wrote:
I think it is correct to say that problems with android are related to
environent, not to the OS itself. Windows CE practically run alone, with no other tasks , on the device.

Good point. CE is a known quantity. Android devices also run the risk of malware and viruses. Ce virus and malware are not likely. If I ran PNA Android in the air, I would run it on a clean install of the OS with no other applications running (and on a tablet, not a phone).