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You're saying that as long as you do everything perfectly all the time you're (mostly) safe. Real life proved again and again that there no such thing as "all p

You're saying that as long as you do everything perfectly all the time you're (mostly) safe. Real life proved again and again that there no such thing as "all perfect all the time". Mistakes will happen and when they do HF is far less forgiving than other instruments of the devil.

dnautics 7y ago
It's not a matter of perfection, it's a matter of tooling. It's not like saying "you're safe from segfaults in c if you program correctly", it's like saying "you're safe from segfaults in erlang". Yes, mistakes will happen. Yes, you can segfault erlang. Yes there are tradeoffs. But, I can have a junior deploy to prod confidently in a BEAM language in a few months, I can have a first year grad student use HF confidently in a few weeks.
- close04 7y ago
  A segfault is a segfault and for all intents and purposes it's the same regardless of the language you used to make the mistake. If a segfault in Erlang guaranteed that you lost a hand would you want to avoid it? On the other hand (pun intended) chemicals intrinsically make a burn more or less serious. It's the difference between getting a rash or dying a horrible death. In a risk matrix the probability has less weight than the severity. So a "catastrophic" severity will make the risk shoot up faster than even "certain" probability. Regardless of tooling and precautions taken the impact of the mistake makes a difference in any field and will make people want to completely steer away from some. I think it can be summed it up like this: If you were tied to a chair and someone was about to drip something on you what would you rather it be: HCl or ClF3?
  - dnautics 7y ago
    The severity of a plane crash is rather high. Do you prefer walking?
    - close04 7y ago
      Well... yes. Plenty of people do (and actual alternatives to flying) specifically because they consider flying too dangerous, uncomfortable, unwieldy, etc. and everyone agrees a crash is unlikely but catastrophic. But you're being pedantic now. Nobody takes the plane to a place they can walk to. Many people don't take the plane even to a place where they can go by train or car. I understand that you may have to work with something like ClF3 but what everyone is telling you is that they'd rather avoid it if they have a choice. Just like most people would avoid working with unstable explosives, dangerous pathogens, extreme sports, and any very dangerous job in general even if all of these have their own set of precautions. As the danger level increases people justifiably would rather avoid that specific task. Precautions are a mitigation but overall the sentiment stays, the job becomes much more stressful and the outcome of a mistake more severe. The more dangerous the task and more severe the consequences of a mistake, the fewer the people that would want to deal with it. Take from this what you will.

dnautics 7y ago

It's not a matter of perfection, it's a matter of tooling. It's not like saying "you're safe from segfaults in c if you program correctly", it's like saying "you're safe from segfaults in erlang". Yes, mistakes will happen. Yes, you can segfault erlang. Yes there are tradeoffs. But, I can have a junior deploy to prod confidently in a BEAM language in a few months, I can have a first year grad student use HF confidently in a few weeks.

close04 7y ago
A segfault is a segfault and for all intents and purposes it's the same regardless of the language you used to make the mistake. If a segfault in Erlang guaranteed that you lost a hand would you want to avoid it? On the other hand (pun intended) chemicals intrinsically make a burn more or less serious. It's the difference between getting a rash or dying a horrible death. In a risk matrix the probability has less weight than the severity. So a "catastrophic" severity will make the risk shoot up faster than even "certain" probability. Regardless of tooling and precautions taken the impact of the mistake makes a difference in any field and will make people want to completely steer away from some. I think it can be summed it up like this: If you were tied to a chair and someone was about to drip something on you what would you rather it be: HCl or ClF3?
- dnautics 7y ago
  The severity of a plane crash is rather high. Do you prefer walking?
  - close04 7y ago
    Well... yes. Plenty of people do (and actual alternatives to flying) specifically because they consider flying too dangerous, uncomfortable, unwieldy, etc. and everyone agrees a crash is unlikely but catastrophic. But you're being pedantic now. Nobody takes the plane to a place they can walk to. Many people don't take the plane even to a place where they can go by train or car. I understand that you may have to work with something like ClF3 but what everyone is telling you is that they'd rather avoid it if they have a choice. Just like most people would avoid working with unstable explosives, dangerous pathogens, extreme sports, and any very dangerous job in general even if all of these have their own set of precautions. As the danger level increases people justifiably would rather avoid that specific task. Precautions are a mitigation but overall the sentiment stays, the job becomes much more stressful and the outcome of a mistake more severe. The more dangerous the task and more severe the consequences of a mistake, the fewer the people that would want to deal with it. Take from this what you will.