3 ms·

Every skillful programmer knows that all software is crap. Judges, salesman, and managers don't understand that.

jack_riminton 3y ago
A big problem is they don't want to do the work to understand that, which is the exact outlook the PO had... "We need some software, ok let's get a big reputable company in to do it for us, we shouldn't get bogged down with all those horrible technical details"
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  Not wanting to defend the PO but it wasn't really their decision - it was a PFI (private finance initiative) foisted upon them by the Tory government of the day as one of their recurring "STOP BENEFIT FRAUD!" lunacies.
  - jack_riminton 3y ago
    Wasn't it enacted under Blair?
    - zimpenfish 3y ago
      Started in 1994 under the Tories, rolled out in 1999 under Labour as the reduced system after DSS withdrew.
      - jack_riminton 3y ago
        Thanks
watwut 3y ago
> Judges, salesman, and managers don't understand that. They do understand that. They do not care.
izacus 3y ago
And that skillful programmer will fight with all power to avoid any kind of minimum standard and liability for crap software, continuing the cycle and abuse.
- the8472 3y ago
  It's always spectrum from THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” to high-assurance methods used in aerospace and similar safety-critical fields. The skillfull programmer may accept liability when you give him a verification team with a few PhDs, the ability to withhold signoffs, flexible deadlines etc. etc. Few are willing or required to pay for that. So they get a mystery box with a 90% chance of crap.
gwd 3y ago
> Judges... don't understand that. I think for the courts the issue is a bit more subtle. The question is, who's job is it to prove that the other person is wrong ("burden of proof")? Should it be the job of the prosecutor to prove that Intel's processor produces the right answer when an ADD instruction is executed? Or should it be the job of the defendant to show that Intel's processor doesn't produce the right answer? What about proving that the compiler produced binaries which faithfully represent the algorithm? What about Excel? In our normal life, if a computer is doing the wrong thing, we don't start by assuming a broken compiler; we start by assuming that the new, not-well-tested code is probably broken. It seems that in the UK before the 90's, the burden of proof was always on the prosecutor to prove almost everything about the system, which is kind of ridiculous. So they passed a law trying to fix it, but messed it up the other way, putting the entire burden of proof on the defendant, without giving them any real way to disprove it. (I mean, shouldn't "discovery" at least mean I can inspect the source code?) A more balanced law would say that widely-used software with extensive test suites can generally be assumed to be working properly; but that custom-purpose software needs at least some level of evidence that it's correct, and that defendants have a right to inspect any software that's used against them in court for defects.
inglor_cz 3y ago
This is a somewhat Sith-like dealing with absolutes. Laypeople generally understand that software may crap the bed in the sense of "the system is down, please wait, then try again". But few people have experienced subtle changes in stored data. A judge looking into his document cloud may be ready to see a "sorry, not available right now" notice, but doesn't expect that some sinister program is, in the background, silently editing texts of his judgments and pronouncing people guilty when he intended to free them etc. The problem with the Horizon scandal is in this sinister manipulation of data. It may also have been done by Fujitsu people themselves, in order to cover some tracks and tamper with evidence. This is a very untypical failure mode.

A big problem is they don't want to do the work to understand that, which is the exact outlook the PO had... "We need some software, ok let's get a big reputable company in to do it for us, we shouldn't get bogged down with all those horrible technical details"

zimpenfish 3y ago
Not wanting to defend the PO but it wasn't really their decision - it was a PFI (private finance initiative) foisted upon them by the Tory government of the day as one of their recurring "STOP BENEFIT FRAUD!" lunacies.
- jack_riminton 3y ago
  Wasn't it enacted under Blair?
  - zimpenfish 3y ago
    Started in 1994 under the Tories, rolled out in 1999 under Labour as the reduced system after DSS withdrew.
    - jack_riminton 3y ago
      Thanks

watwut 3y ago

> Judges, salesman, and managers don't understand that. They do understand that. They do not care.

izacus 3y ago

And that skillful programmer will fight with all power to avoid any kind of minimum standard and liability for crap software, continuing the cycle and abuse.

the8472 3y ago
It's always spectrum from THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” to high-assurance methods used in aerospace and similar safety-critical fields. The skillfull programmer may accept liability when you give him a verification team with a few PhDs, the ability to withhold signoffs, flexible deadlines etc. etc. Few are willing or required to pay for that. So they get a mystery box with a 90% chance of crap.

gwd 3y ago

> Judges... don't understand that. I think for the courts the issue is a bit more subtle. The question is, who's job is it to prove that the other person is wrong ("burden of proof")? Should it be the job of the prosecutor to prove that Intel's processor produces the right answer when an ADD instruction is executed? Or should it be the job of the defendant to show that Intel's processor doesn't produce the right answer? What about proving that the compiler produced binaries which faithfully represent the algorithm? What about Excel? In our normal life, if a computer is doing the wrong thing, we don't start by assuming a broken compiler; we start by assuming that the new, not-well-tested code is probably broken. It seems that in the UK before the 90's, the burden of proof was always on the prosecutor to prove almost everything about the system, which is kind of ridiculous. So they passed a law trying to fix it, but messed it up the other way, putting the entire burden of proof on the defendant, without giving them any real way to disprove it. (I mean, shouldn't "discovery" at least mean I can inspect the source code?) A more balanced law would say that widely-used software with extensive test suites can generally be assumed to be working properly; but that custom-purpose software needs at least some level of evidence that it's correct, and that defendants have a right to inspect any software that's used against them in court for defects.

inglor_cz 3y ago

This is a somewhat Sith-like dealing with absolutes. Laypeople generally understand that software may crap the bed in the sense of "the system is down, please wait, then try again". But few people have experienced subtle changes in stored data. A judge looking into his document cloud may be ready to see a "sorry, not available right now" notice, but doesn't expect that some sinister program is, in the background, silently editing texts of his judgments and pronouncing people guilty when he intended to free them etc. The problem with the Horizon scandal is in this sinister manipulation of data. It may also have been done by Fujitsu people themselves, in order to cover some tracks and tamper with evidence. This is a very untypical failure mode.