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Benjamin Franz wrote: > On Fri, 31 Dec 2004, M. David Peterson wrote: > >> That and your not going to die if something goes wrong with each >> built-in safety-switch in your test code... Its hard for me to think >> of the implications of failed code compared to implications of a >> failed flight. Please don't take offense by this as I understand what >> it is you are suggesting but still have a hard time comparing a >> computer crash to a plane crash. > > > You should subscribe to the Risks Digest. More that a couple of deaths > are attributable to broken software. > > People treat software like it isn't real. Software machines are just > as real as hardware machines - and often control hardware machines. If > you are killed by a radiation therapy machine because of broken > software - you are just as dead as if the cause was broken hardware. > <URL:http://www.ccnr.org/fatal_dose.html> > > And yes - commercial planes _HAVE_ crashed where one of the proximate > causes was broken software (accidents are rarely 'one thing' - they > are usually two or more things in unusual combination): Put American > Airlines Flight 965 into a search engine. > > I'm of the opinion that software is where engineering was about a > century ago: In demand, unregulated, and open to anyone who wants to > call themselves a 'programmer', regardless of skill or training. > Disasters directly traceable to poor 'engineering' by people with > neither skill or training killed a number of people and laws were > passed restricting who can legally call themselves an 'engineer'. > > By the end of this century, I will be amazed if you will still be able > to call yourself a 'software engineer/progammer' without a legally > mandated certification, license and professional standards. i was hoping for that at the end of the last century. rick begin:vcard fn:Rick Marshall n:Marshall;Rick email;internet:rjm@z... tel;cell:+61 411 287 530 x-mozilla-html:TRUE version:2.1 end:vcard
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