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No, "they" shouldn't. When stuff like this happens, it's a process issue, not an issue with a particular engineer. It's human nature to try to assign blame to

No, "they" shouldn't. When stuff like this happens, it's a process issue, not an issue with a particular engineer. It's human nature to try to assign blame to people and that's why it's so important to avoid that. Whatever process created the flawed product is where the blame lies. Somewhere in the group that produced MCAS, there's a process to permit changes to be submitted, reviewed, accepted or rejected, implemented and tested along with the documentation produced at each stage. Maybe that process is broken, maybe it isn't. From the outside we can't tell. However, as responsible professional software developers what we should do is understand that these are system problems and not just look around for someone to pin the blame on.

LoSboccacc 7y ago
as people died, now you need both: to identify the issue with the process that caused the problem to happen, sure, but also to identify key figures that signed off the design and trough the justice system identify whether exists a direct cause between their decisions and people deaths.
mikehollinger 7y ago
Yeah, my first reaction after watching the video (it was a good video to watch over a morning coffee!) was that the author used passive voice several times without making it clear _who_ took a particular action ("It was decided" and other phrases like that). You make a good point that no one person might've made the call, however someone _must_ be accountable for it even if no single party is responsible (a single person at some level, possibly the CEO, probably below that level). That's what I'm personally curious to know.
logjammin 7y ago
Are holding people to (moral, ethical) account and looking at problems from a systems perspective mutually exclusive? These are systems problems, I fully agree, but they aren't only systems problems. The systems in question are people. They have minds, personalities, and agency. Eliding this - sorry for saying so - makes phrases like "whatever process created the flawed product [...]" sound absurd, borderline callous. I hate to resort to what by now is a web forum trope, but would you look the MAX victims' families in the eye and say, word for word, what you wrote above: "No, 'they' shouldn't" be held to account? Come on dude.

LoSboccacc 7y ago

as people died, now you need both: to identify the issue with the process that caused the problem to happen, sure, but also to identify key figures that signed off the design and trough the justice system identify whether exists a direct cause between their decisions and people deaths.

mikehollinger 7y ago

Yeah, my first reaction after watching the video (it was a good video to watch over a morning coffee!) was that the author used passive voice several times without making it clear _who_ took a particular action ("It was decided" and other phrases like that). You make a good point that no one person might've made the call, however someone _must_ be accountable for it even if no single party is responsible (a single person at some level, possibly the CEO, probably below that level). That's what I'm personally curious to know.

logjammin 7y ago

Are holding people to (moral, ethical) account and looking at problems from a systems perspective mutually exclusive? These are systems problems, I fully agree, but they aren't only systems problems. The systems in question are people. They have minds, personalities, and agency. Eliding this - sorry for saying so - makes phrases like "whatever process created the flawed product [...]" sound absurd, borderline callous. I hate to resort to what by now is a web forum trope, but would you look the MAX victims' families in the eye and say, word for word, what you wrote above: "No, 'they' shouldn't" be held to account? Come on dude.