5 ms·

As I interpret Murphy's Law, it's not so much about failure in actuality, but more about anticipating the failure, and designing your code/product/system for th

• dspillett 8y ago
  > it's not so much about failure in actuality Murphy himself was unhappy abut the common interpretation of his law, which is negative rather than cautionary, implying a vindictiveness to exist in inanimate objects and the laws of chance. > but more about anticipating the failure, and designing your code/product/system for the worst case scenario Which was his intent. IIRC the phrase was coined while working on rocket sleds for a land speed record attempt. He was essentially trying to achieve "no matter what happens we want to maximise the chance of the pilot being alive afterwards, if some of the equipment survives too that is even better" and promoting a defensive always-fail-as-safely-as-possible engineering stance.
  • dahart 8y ago
    > Murphy himself was unhappy abut the common interpretation of his law, which is negative rather than cautionary Are you sure about that? Murphy's actual statement was negative and not cautionary. He was criticizing a person, not saying something cautionary about the nature of the universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law#Association_with_Murphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law#Association_wit...
  • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    Exactly. You can't say "That won't happen" or "that's unlikely to happen". You have to have a way that handles it so that, even if it does happen, the guy on the sled doesn't die.