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I didn't expect a lot of intelligent analysis of this airline computer glitch, and I haven't been disappointed:

The cancellation of 1,100 Christmas Day flights by Comair because of computer troubles is prompting calls for more investments in backup systems and other technologies to prevent further groundings and damage to an already struggling industry.

The foul-up was hardly the first: A computer glitch grounded 40 Delta flights in May. A power failure created a computer problem that forced Northwest to cancel more than 120 flights in July. A worker keystroke error grounded or delayed some American and US Airways flights for several hours in August.

"Obviously, the airlines have become way too dependent on computers," said Terry Trippler, an airline industry expert in Minneapolis. "Imagine a computer glitch and all the Wal-Mart stores across the country shut down, (founder) Sam (Walton) would come out of his grave."

Too dependent on computers? What does she expect, huge binders with reservations and crew allocations as a backup? Good gosh, the issue isn't the dependency on software - it's almost certainly a lack of decent testing. The very first question that should be asked of the people who provide ComAir with software should be "Where's your testbed setup?" Anyone want to take bets on the variety of puzzled looks that would come of that question?