How is a robust program defined?

A robust program is defined as one that can handle external problems without crashing. This means it is designed to cope with unexpected inputs, errors, or unusual conditions that may arise during its execution. This characteristic is particularly important in software development, as it ensures that the program maintains functionality and does not cause a failure or a crash when encountering issues such as invalid user input, hardware failures, or network problems.

Robustness enhances the user experience by making the software more reliable, and it reduces the likelihood of data loss or corruption. A program that is robust can often provide useful error messages or perform recovery actions, allowing users to continue using the software or to recover from errors gracefully.

While factors like ease of updates, efficient resource usage, and user confirmation logic are important attributes of software, they do not define robustness in the same way that handling external problems does. Robustness is fundamentally about resilience to unforeseen challenges in the operating environment.