Crash-only vs fault tolerant

Posted Jul 14, 2006 18:07 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
In reply to: Crash-only software: More than meets the eye by th0ma7
Parent article: Crash-only software: More than meets the eye

What you're describing is known by the name "fault tolerant," not "crash-only."

A crash-only program is one that doesn't have a clean shutdown operation. Because the only way to stop the program is to cause a fault, it is obviously fault tolerant as well.

The article makes the point that your fault tolerant code is more likely to work right if you put it in a crash-only program because it gets exercised, and thought about, more.