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Are they meant to be examples of complex tech that aren't allowed to fail and don't? Or examples of complex tech that does fail, but really shouldn't? >but a c

Are they meant to be examples of complex tech that aren't allowed to fail and don't? Or examples of complex tech that does fail, but really shouldn't? >but a customer doesn't and shouldn't need to understand that, and certainly shouldn't be offered the complexity as an excuse for it not working correctly It's not an excuse - it's an explanation. These things are complex, and complex things sometimes fail. The average user can be forgiven for not really appreciating this, but lack of knowledge of the nature of complexity doesn't magically make it disappear. Of couse companies could take the NASA approach of spending huge amounts of time and money on formal requirements/analysis methods, building massively fault-tolerant solutions etc etc, but I doubt there's a vast amount of users out there willing to buy tech that's 5 years behind cutting edge, and costing many times more, simply because it (almost) never fails.

zaptheimpaler 14y ago
They are meant to be examples of failures which are extremely rare and would be unacceptable to consumers. Sorry, I realize they are quite unimaginative :P My response to your comment is the same as the previous one: >My argument is not that consumer products should be perfect; it is that when consumers see deficiencies in them which could reasonably be fixed, they have every right to complain. In fact, they should complain because it will help make things better.
- prof_hobart 14y ago
  >They are meant to be examples of failures which are extremely rare and would be unacceptable to consumers. Sorry, I realize they are quite unimaginative :P Cars stop moving on a fairly regular basis, often as a result of the comparatively simple mechanical side of things. In the case of Toyota a couple of years ago, they didn't stop moving at all when the driver wanted them to. The other examples you gave have happened too - this despite the rather more critical nature of the machine gun issue and again its relative simplicity compared to, for example, a modern phone. I've got no problem with people calling out where they see problems, expecting someone to at least take their complaints seriously, and in a lot of cases expecting the company to do something about trying to resolve it. But that's not really the message I took from the article - the idea that that these problems are caused by lack of passion or quality on the part of the people making this stuff rather than being an almost inevitable result of the complex nature of these systems. TBH, I'm not even sure I buy that it's really that much of a problem. Almost everything isn't actually broken - the vast majority of our tech works remarkably well the vast majority of the time, and I prefer having tech that mostly works and is both available and affordable than having the same tech that will work perfectly when it's delivered in 5 years time at a vastly increased cost.

zaptheimpaler 14y ago

They are meant to be examples of failures which are extremely rare and would be unacceptable to consumers. Sorry, I realize they are quite unimaginative :P My response to your comment is the same as the previous one: >My argument is not that consumer products should be perfect; it is that when consumers see deficiencies in them which could reasonably be fixed, they have every right to complain. In fact, they should complain because it will help make things better.

prof_hobart 14y ago
>They are meant to be examples of failures which are extremely rare and would be unacceptable to consumers. Sorry, I realize they are quite unimaginative :P Cars stop moving on a fairly regular basis, often as a result of the comparatively simple mechanical side of things. In the case of Toyota a couple of years ago, they didn't stop moving at all when the driver wanted them to. The other examples you gave have happened too - this despite the rather more critical nature of the machine gun issue and again its relative simplicity compared to, for example, a modern phone. I've got no problem with people calling out where they see problems, expecting someone to at least take their complaints seriously, and in a lot of cases expecting the company to do something about trying to resolve it. But that's not really the message I took from the article - the idea that that these problems are caused by lack of passion or quality on the part of the people making this stuff rather than being an almost inevitable result of the complex nature of these systems. TBH, I'm not even sure I buy that it's really that much of a problem. Almost everything isn't actually broken - the vast majority of our tech works remarkably well the vast majority of the time, and I prefer having tech that mostly works and is both available and affordable than having the same tech that will work perfectly when it's delivered in 5 years time at a vastly increased cost.