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I went to an engineering school in Canada for Electrical/Computer Engineering and this was an example of engineering failure we studied in a course about softwa

I went to an engineering school in Canada for Electrical/Computer Engineering and this was an example of engineering failure we studied in a course about software quality assurance and engineering ethics. Not sure if its widely used as a case study outside of Canada, but it really stuck with me. Especially when designing critical systems. There are two types of reactions to the Therac-25 story. 1) We need to put a lot of process in place to review and test and ensure we have proper interlocks in place. 2) They just didn't have enough talent on the team. It couldn't happen here. You want some people with reaction 1 working on a safety critical system.

fuklief 7y ago
In my field, we use this kind of example to tell people that testing sucks or is not enough and that we need to formally/mathematically prove that software is free of bugs for critical systems.
- nugator 7y ago
  What field is that and how do you achive that?
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  What you described is testing.
philjohn 7y ago
It's widely used around the world for teaching about engineering failure.
WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
Therac-25 is the standard Bachelor's Level Ethics and Software Engineering case studies in Florida at least.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  It was standard on my foundation degree in software engineering years ago. Ethics and responsible software development was a good unit.
ubertakter 7y ago
3) If you have a machine that blasts people with ionizing radiation, it needs some kind of hardware safety interlock.
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  That's actually 1.
  - bumby 7y ago
    I think their point was slightly more detailed in that they were advocating non-software interlovks
- ClassyJacket 7y ago
  They had one on previous models, but they removed it to save money.
noir_lord 7y ago
I'd say there are 3 with the third been 3) I'd never work on life critical medical (or anything else) software, I know I fuck up and even the best can (and I'm not). I simply wouldn't want it on my conscience that an easily preventable error (in hindsight) hurt someone.
- carlmr 7y ago
  If you think like #3 you're one of the engineers that should work on safety critical software. Recognizing that you may produce errors I think is akin to the Dunning-Kruger effect. It shows me you know enough that you don't know enough, which is far preferable to people who don't know they don't know and thus think they're good.
  - LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
    The nightmare employee in this situation is the "rockstar".
- URSpider94 7y ago
  This is why Quality is such an awesome field. It's all about how a group of smart, skilled, but fundamentally fallible people can build a product with an arbitrarily high level of safety. If it's done properly, no one individual should be able to create a bug that can cause a failure like this.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    For a second there, I thought you were about to quote the best QA job opening I ever saw: "Want to work with fun, smart people? And make them cry?"
- mcguire 7y ago
  4) I don't work on anything safety critical, I just work on (millions of dollars per second | stores of personal information) systems. I don't need to worry.
- londons_explore 7y ago

fuklief 7y ago

In my field, we use this kind of example to tell people that testing sucks or is not enough and that we need to formally/mathematically prove that software is free of bugs for critical systems.

nugator 7y ago
What field is that and how do you achive that?
throwaway5752 7y ago
What you described is testing.

philjohn 7y ago

It's widely used around the world for teaching about engineering failure.

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago

Therac-25 is the standard Bachelor's Level Ethics and Software Engineering case studies in Florida at least.

noir_lord 7y ago
It was standard on my foundation degree in software engineering years ago. Ethics and responsible software development was a good unit.

ubertakter 7y ago

3) If you have a machine that blasts people with ionizing radiation, it needs some kind of hardware safety interlock.

jschwartzi 7y ago
That's actually 1.
- bumby 7y ago
  I think their point was slightly more detailed in that they were advocating non-software interlovks
ClassyJacket 7y ago
They had one on previous models, but they removed it to save money.

noir_lord 7y ago

I'd say there are 3 with the third been 3) I'd never work on life critical medical (or anything else) software, I know I fuck up and even the best can (and I'm not). I simply wouldn't want it on my conscience that an easily preventable error (in hindsight) hurt someone.

carlmr 7y ago
If you think like #3 you're one of the engineers that should work on safety critical software. Recognizing that you may produce errors I think is akin to the Dunning-Kruger effect. It shows me you know enough that you don't know enough, which is far preferable to people who don't know they don't know and thus think they're good.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
  The nightmare employee in this situation is the "rockstar".
URSpider94 7y ago
This is why Quality is such an awesome field. It's all about how a group of smart, skilled, but fundamentally fallible people can build a product with an arbitrarily high level of safety. If it's done properly, no one individual should be able to create a bug that can cause a failure like this.
- mcguire 7y ago
  For a second there, I thought you were about to quote the best QA job opening I ever saw: "Want to work with fun, smart people? And make them cry?"
mcguire 7y ago
4) I don't work on anything safety critical, I just work on (millions of dollars per second | stores of personal information) systems. I don't need to worry.
londons_explore 7y ago