Everyone who writes safety critical software should read this

[Wyatt]

On Saturday, 2 November 2013 at 04:06:46 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 11/1/2013 6:52 AM, Wyatt wrote:
>> "We could, for instance, begin with cleaning up our language 
>> by no longer
>> calling a bug a bug but by calling it an error. It is much 
>> more honest because
>> it squarely puts the blame where it belongs, viz. with the 
>> programmer who made
>> the error.
>
> Although it is tempting to do so, creating a culture of "blame 
> the programmer" for the mistakes he's made also creates a 
> culture of denial of problems.
>
> If you want to create quality of software, a far better culture 
> is one that recognizes that people are imperfect, and looks for 
> collaborative ways to engineer the possibility of errors out of 
> the system. That doesn't work if you're trying to pin the blame 
> on somebody.

My reading was less that an error should be hauled out as an 
indictment of the individual who made it and more that we should 
collectively be more cognizant of our own fallible nature and 
accept that that affects the work we do.  In that vein the _who_ 
is less important than the explicit understanding that some human 
(probably me) mucked up.  Of course, I tend to read EWD with a 
fair bit of fabric softener- he was a grumpy old man on a mission.

Though even with the more literal interpretation, I'm not sure I 
agree that necessarily has to be negative.  If I'm in error, I 
honestly _want_ to know.  How it's conveyed is a function of the 
culture that can make it a positive (learning) experience or a 
negative one.

-Wyatt