https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Moderncode-for-Parallel/What-really-happened-on-Mars/m-p/989804#M6148 As an applications developer, catastrophic bugs interest me. I'm particularly interested in concurrent programming errors, which is why I work at the lab where the <A href="http://www.intel.com/software/products/threading/">Intel Threading Tools</A> are developed. I'm also a big fan of NASA and the programmers at JPL.<BR /><BR />Anyway, back in 1997 I'd go to the JPL web site every day for updates on the <A href="http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/default.html">Mars Pathfinder</A>, one of the most successful space exploration missions of all time. I didn't know it back then but the Mars Pathfinder was nearly crippled by a classic threading error known as a <I>priority inversion</I>.<BR /><BR />Mike Jones of Microsoft Research posted a couple of articles on his web site that describe the error in the Mars Pathfinder software and how it was fixed. The first is Mike's article <A href="http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Mars_Pathfinder/Mars_Pathfinder.html">"What Really Happened on Mars?"</A> with a <A href="http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Mars_Pathfinder/Authoritative_Account.html">follow-up from Glenn Reeves</A>, the head of the software team for the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft.<BR /><BR />I recommend these articles to anyone interested threading. If you're adjusting thread priorities and you've never heard of priority inversion, stop what you're doing and read these articles ;-).<BR /><BR />If you have any other bug stories related to threading, please post them. Fri, 09 May 2003 21:22:43 GMT Henry_G_Intel 2003-05-09T21:22:43Z https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Moderncode-for-Parallel/What-really-happened-on-Mars/m-p/989804#M6148 As an applications developer, catastrophic bugs interest me. I'm particularly interested in concurrent programming errors, which is why I work at the lab where the <A href="http://www.intel.com/software/products/threading/">Intel Threading Tools</A> are developed. I'm also a big fan of NASA and the programmers at JPL.<BR /><BR />Anyway, back in 1997 I'd go to the JPL web site every day for updates on the <A href="http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/default.html">Mars Pathfinder</A>, one of the most successful space exploration missions of all time. I didn't know it back then but the Mars Pathfinder was nearly crippled by a classic threading error known as a <I>priority inversion</I>.<BR /><BR />Mike Jones of Microsoft Research posted a couple of articles on his web site that describe the error in the Mars Pathfinder software and how it was fixed. The first is Mike's article <A href="http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Mars_Pathfinder/Mars_Pathfinder.html">"What Really Happened on Mars?"</A> with a <A href="http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Mars_Pathfinder/Authoritative_Account.html">follow-up from Glenn Reeves</A>, the head of the software team for the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft.<BR /><BR />I recommend these articles to anyone interested threading. If you're adjusting thread priorities and you've never heard of priority inversion, stop what you're doing and read these articles ;-).<BR /><BR />If you have any other bug stories related to threading, please post them. Fri, 09 May 2003 21:22:43 GMT https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Moderncode-for-Parallel/What-really-happened-on-Mars/m-p/989804#M6148 Henry_G_Intel 2003-05-09T21:22:43Z