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Saturday, June 20, 2020

Software Accidents Will Happen


Copyright © Thought Rising 2020 All rights reserved.
"Agile is the process used by disciplined professionals observed in the wild."
- Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin


In December of 1992, I traveled to Snowbird ski resort.  While there, I scribbled 4 statements on a chalkboard in the conference room at the resort.  Apparently no one erased that chalkboard between December 1992 and February 2001.

The Agile Alliance met at Snowbird Ski Resort  in February 2001 and published the Agile Manifesto.  According to Robert Martin, they never met again and don't have any desire to do so.  Is it because they anticipate that they will never find writing on that chalkboard  again?

in 2016, Robert Martin, in his talk on the future of programming, he asserts: "Civilization depends on us!" He notes that many dozens of people have been killed by software (due to software in automobiles malfunctioning and the vehicles consequently running into things).  He goes on to assert, "it's just a matter of time before a software cataclysm occurs when perhaps tens of thousands of people are killed by software written poorly."  He describes the scenario of  an airplane crashing into a football stadium.  But we need to consider whether Dr. Martin's "software cataclysm" will be with a bang or a whimper!  Perhaps Dr. Martin's prediction will not be something with so much man and machine carnage as a plane crash.

In the early years of my career, I was responsible for writing programs to manage and control a ballistic testing laboratory at TRW Safety Systems in Mesa, AZ.  The program managed various interlocks, in which the ballistic test (read: explosion) could not be completed until the testbay door was locked from the outside and every member of the test team that had entered the testbay had authorized the test to proceed -- thus indicating that there was no human being in the ballistic testbay.

Thus, I learned a profound lesson about the importance of Software testing and the reality that software could be harmful to humans.

Copyright © Thought Rising 2020 All rights reserved.

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