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There are two useful lessons from the Titanic that can apply to software: 1) Marketing that you are super duper and special is meaningless if you've actually b
by mrguyorama 3y ago
There are two useful lessons from the Titanic that can apply to software:
1) Marketing that you are super duper and special is meaningless if you've actually built something terrible (the Titanic was not even remotely as unsinkable as claimed, with "water tight" compartments that weren't actually watertight)
2) When people below you tell you "hey we are in danger", listen to them. Don't do things that are obviously dangerous and make zero effort to mitigate the danger. The danger of atlantic icebergs was well understood, and the Titanic was warned multiple times! Yet the captain still had inadequate monitoring, and did not slow down to give the ship more time to react to any threat.
- jacquesm 3y agoGood stuff, thank you. This is useful, and it (2) ties into the Challenger disaster as well.
- mrguyorama 3y agoThe one hangup with "Listen to people warning you" is that they produce enough false positives as to create a boy who cried wolf effect for some managers.
- jacquesm 3y agoYes, that's true. So the hard part is to know who is alarmist and who actually has a point. In the case of NASA the ignoring bit seemed to be pretty wilful. By the time multiple engineers warn you that this is not a good idea and you push on anyway I think you are out of excuses. Single warnings not backed up by data can probably be ignored.