Everyone who writes safety critical software should read this

[Chris]

On Wednesday, 30 October 2013 at 21:18:16 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
> On 10/30/2013 11:01 AM, Chris wrote:
>> "Poorly designed firmware caused unintended operation, lack of 
>> driver
>> training made it fatal."
>> So it's the driver's fault, who couldn't possibly know what 
>> was going on
>> in that car-gone-mad? To put the blame on the driver is 
>> cynicism of the worst kind.
>> Unfortunately, that's a common (and dangerous) attitude I've 
>> come across
>> among programmers and engineers.
>
> There are also misguided end users who believe there cannot be 
> any other way (and sometimes even believe that the big players 
> in the industry are infallible, and hence the user is to blame 
> for any failure).
>

I know. A lot of people are like that. But who (mis)guides them? 
The big PR campaigns by big companies who talk about "safety" and 
"precision" and give users a false sense of security. Now that I 
think of it, maybe the fact that they don't have a simple 
mechanical backup is not because of the engineering culture. 
Maybe it is to do with the fact that a product might seem less 
attractive, if the company admits that it can fail by including a 
backup mechanism.