3 ms·
As a machinist who occasionally write programs in G-Code from scratch and adjusts them almost daily I can say even if it doesn't kill anyone, it might send 25 p
by uabstraction 10y ago
As a machinist who occasionally write programs in G-Code from scratch and adjusts them almost daily I can say even if it doesn't kill anyone, it might send 25 pounds of brass spinning at 750 RPM flying across the shop. People take writing harmless software for granted, but there are many fields where a software failure can cause a serious emergency. There are embedded systems lurking in a huge variety of machines which operate with deadly forces... from aircraft to power plants to industrial processes to the car you drive to work.
- TheCapn 10y agoI like sharing this image with friends when talking about how safety and responsibility matter in software: http://i.imgur.com/SFHjzNg.png http://i.imgur.com/SFHjzNg.png - A snippet from the help files for a PLC coding program. If people want to adopt calling themselves Software Engineers I say they need to uphold Engineering principles and that usually involves a lot more responsibility than I see in software communities.
- Cephlin 10y agoAnother example would be writing software for medical trials that then allocates the wrong active dosages can be very harmful. There are many cases as you mentioned.