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I learned not to write life-critical software. There is no bringing back the dead. Corporate mission-critical software (unless said corporation is power, weapon
by superuser2 13y ago
I learned not to write life-critical software. There is no bringing back the dead. Corporate mission-critical software (unless said corporation is power, weapons, transportation, or healthcare related) can usually only lose money.
- orting 13y agoThe upside to writing software for healthcare is that your code might help people recover faster or in some cases survive where they otherwise wouldnt. But it can be stressful to write software that has a very direct impact on peoples lifes. While I was rolling out an updated version of an inhouse application a serious bug was discovered. The application was used as part of chemotherapy follow-up/planning and on some occasions it gave the wrong answer for a test. I discovered that the bug was old and that wrong answers had been given for a long period. Personally I was relieved that I had not caused the bug, but from a medical perspective it would have been better if the bug was new and had only affected very few patients. My takeaway from that experience is that care should be taken when writing critical software, but also that we will make mistakes and it is very important to always focus on how we can make fewer mistakes instead of pointing fingers.