Introduction

When there are multiple paths to the same destination, it is often the case that one who has traveled more than one path has a broader perspective and outlook than one who took only the shortest (or the longest) path, or the easiest (or the most difficult) path. The same can be said when there are multiple procedures to getting the same solution. Although this author finds the spreadsheet platform efficient, versatile, succinct and lucid on solving many probability and reliability examples in this book, readers are encouraged to solve the same examples on other platforms, including classical mathematical approaches, MATLAB, MathCad, R, Python and so on.