3 ms·

A very vague article if you ask me.

• breakingcups 5y ago
  If you read between the lines you can see how many management layers the description of this bug went through before arriving here: "It was a generic issue in the prescribing software. It's a patch relating to upgrading to Microsoft 10." Like a game of telephone (chinese whispers?), the actual root cause gets buried in layers of misunderstanding. The root cause might be (purely as an example, not even speculative on this particular case): "We use a terminal emulator to interface with an ancient system, the particular emulator we use has a dependency on library XYZ which has always mishandled number inputs but nobody noticed due to an unexpected interaction with Windows' IME. In Windows 10, IME was reworked and the bug was no longer masked." Who's really at fault in such a case? Is it Microsoft for changing OS behavior? Is it the original manufacturer/developer for relying on unspecified behavior? Is it the hospitals for not fully testing each upgrade themselves?
  • lucasyvas 5y ago
    While I would assume that in most cases the primary fault would belong to the manufacturer/developer in your example, there is missing change control at every level. Each party should be asking "If something were to break, what's the worst that could happen?" This concept should be mandated at every level of software rollout that could endanger lives. Part of this is a failure of the software industry because we have perpetuated the narrative that stuff "Just works." which is dangerously misleading to the general public. The public needs to understand more about the practicalities of software through better education. As developers, we need to push robustness way further than the average company cares to produce.