And for an (admittedly dated) example of what can go horribly, horribly wrong in some fields: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

And for an (admittedly dated) example of what can go horribly, horribly wrong in some fields: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 It's ok if your Web app occasionally spits a 500 error or your game crashes once in a while. It's not ok if your radiation therapy machine occasionally flips out and kills people with a massive overdose.