4 ms·

The risk profiles of the examples you gave are not comparable to that of most software projects. Most software projects are harmless if they crash. No one is hu

by sime2009 7y ago

The risk profiles of the examples you gave are not comparable to that of most software projects. Most software projects are harmless if they crash. No one is hurt. Software projects which do risk injury and dead, for example embedded medical, get a lot more engineering and QA.

atoav 7y ago
While you are certainly right that certain fields are more deadly than others, less direct things like loosing personal pictures of someone, leaking someones unencrypted medical data, getting some abstract score wrong, etc. can seriously impact your users lifes. And even the more security critical fields constantly do things wrong. When you can change the workings of an insulin pump that is in someone elses body remotely and it turns out neither the programmer nor the regulators thought authentification might be a good idea, you know something is very wrong with a whole profession. The latest Boeeing example is more of a regulatory failure, but somwhere someone sat and coded the behaviour that killed multiple hundreds of people. We as programmers are just as responsible for what our stuff is doing as anybody else. Maybe even more so, because the work of our hands multiplies. If we put in the effort to make something a little easier, safer and faster that people use every day, you impact more lifes than you might know. And the same is true for the other direction. Why is it, that software glitches are always seen as a god given higher force, that nobody could have prevented? I know managing complexity is hard, but there is proof out there that it can be done if wanted. We could wait till we are forced to do this by law, or (preferebly) develope at least a pinch of ethos for our own work.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I wouldn't bet on the industry reforming itself. If all other industries are an indication, quality and safety needs to be regulated in. Boeing case is indeed good example. They cared about safety of their planes up until they figured out how to make more money by skillfully avoiding having to care. It looks like it blew up in their faces, but I'm not so sure of that - they're more than "too big to fail", they're a strategic company for the US, so the military won't let them fail. > If we put in the effort to make something a little easier, safer and faster that people use every day, you impact more lifes than you might know. My point (here and in parallel reply) is, if "being a professional" is defined as being focused on business objectives and bringing in revenue through your work, then putting in that effort, making things easier, safer and faster, are all - by that definition - unprofessional behavior. Sacrificing time and revenue for goals the market doesn't care about.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

atoav 7y ago

While you are certainly right that certain fields are more deadly than others, less direct things like loosing personal pictures of someone, leaking someones unencrypted medical data, getting some abstract score wrong, etc. can seriously impact your users lifes. And even the more security critical fields constantly do things wrong. When you can change the workings of an insulin pump that is in someone elses body remotely and it turns out neither the programmer nor the regulators thought authentification might be a good idea, you know something is very wrong with a whole profession. The latest Boeeing example is more of a regulatory failure, but somwhere someone sat and coded the behaviour that killed multiple hundreds of people. We as programmers are just as responsible for what our stuff is doing as anybody else. Maybe even more so, because the work of our hands multiplies. If we put in the effort to make something a little easier, safer and faster that people use every day, you impact more lifes than you might know. And the same is true for the other direction. Why is it, that software glitches are always seen as a god given higher force, that nobody could have prevented? I know managing complexity is hard, but there is proof out there that it can be done if wanted. We could wait till we are forced to do this by law, or (preferebly) develope at least a pinch of ethos for our own work.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
I wouldn't bet on the industry reforming itself. If all other industries are an indication, quality and safety needs to be regulated in. Boeing case is indeed good example. They cared about safety of their planes up until they figured out how to make more money by skillfully avoiding having to care. It looks like it blew up in their faces, but I'm not so sure of that - they're more than "too big to fail", they're a strategic company for the US, so the military won't let them fail. > If we put in the effort to make something a little easier, safer and faster that people use every day, you impact more lifes than you might know. My point (here and in parallel reply) is, if "being a professional" is defined as being focused on business objectives and bringing in revenue through your work, then putting in that effort, making things easier, safer and faster, are all - by that definition - unprofessional behavior. Sacrificing time and revenue for goals the market doesn't care about.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]