Everyone who writes safety critical software should read this

[Chris]

On Wednesday, 30 October 2013 at 22:31:45 UTC, growler wrote:
> On Wednesday, 30 October 2013 at 19:25:45 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 07:14:50PM -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
>
>> [...]
>> For automated testing to be practical, of course, requires 
>> that the
>> system be designed to be tested in that way in the first place 
>> -- which
>> unfortunately very few programmers have been trained to do. 
>> "Whaddya
>> mean, make my code modular and independently testable? I've a 
>> deadline
>> by 12am tonight, and I don't have time for that! Just hardcode 
>> the data
>> into the global variables and get the product out the door 
>> before the
>> midnight bell strikes; who cares if this thing is testable, as 
>> long as
>> the customer thinks it looks like it works!"
>>
>> Sigh.
>>
>>
>> T
>
> Agree 100%.
>
> I read a book way back in the late 1990's, "Rapid Development" 
> by Steve McConnell I think it was called. I remember it was a 
> great read and filled with case studies where development best 
> practices are dissolved by poor management. This Toyota story 
> reads very much like the examples in that book.

Mind you that corporate ideology might be just as harmful as bad 
engineering. I'm sure there is the odd engineer who points out a 
thing or two to the management, but they won't have none of that. 
German troops in Russia were not provided with winter gear, 
because the ideology of the leadership dictated (this is the 
right word) that Moscow be taken before winter. I wouldn't rule 
it out that "switch-off-engine-buttons" are a taboo in certain 
companies for purely ideological reasons.