Doctors need malpractice insurance. Lawyers need it. Civil engineers need it. So why after reading this, I ask, don't software engineers need it?
When you think about it, a computer programmer can do more harm/good with five minutes of work (or lack thereof) than most any other kind of profession. This is because the product of their labors is, in some cases, propagated pretty much throughout all of civilization. Take just one example: the Microsoft Office programmers -- all over the world people use their software, which they wrote once and is used to create millions, perhaps billions, of all kinds of documents a year, as well as manage countless amounts of financial and other data. "Write once, use everywhere". So any bugs (or omissions) they added to the software is something pretty much the entire civilized world has to put up with. Of course this is why the "Open Source" movement started, and for good reason. And a not-so-trivial example of this propagation thing is of course seen with computer viruses. Ten minutes of hacking away to make a virus can easily lead to billions of dollars in damage throughout the world and ruin the days for countless sysadmins. Amazing-- all that with just a keyboard.
I have adopted this Dilbert as my official attitude toward life.
I also dug up an old Hall & Oates tape in my car (yes, "tape"-- I have a tape player in my car, not a CD player. Secretly, I am a Luddite). I couldn't believe how much better it sounded today to my ear than it used to. The days of musicians first getting solid training in instruments and voice before trying to record hits seems to have passed, and this tape only reminded me of the good ol' days when such was not the case. Didn't have lyrics on-line back then either (in fact they didn't have an "on-line" to speak of), so after hearing some of these old songs I looked up their lyrics (my only real criticism of their music is that they didn't seem very good at interweaving their lyrics with their beat, making it hard to understand what Hall was singing) and you know, I found out that a lot of their music doesn't have anything to do with what people think it does. I guess this is probably true for a lot of songs.
If I don't show my age in my face, I guess I show it in my musical tastes. I'm gonna be 39 next month. Ughhh...
When you think about it, a computer programmer can do more harm/good with five minutes of work (or lack thereof) than most any other kind of profession. This is because the product of their labors is, in some cases, propagated pretty much throughout all of civilization. Take just one example: the Microsoft Office programmers -- all over the world people use their software, which they wrote once and is used to create millions, perhaps billions, of all kinds of documents a year, as well as manage countless amounts of financial and other data. "Write once, use everywhere". So any bugs (or omissions) they added to the software is something pretty much the entire civilized world has to put up with. Of course this is why the "Open Source" movement started, and for good reason. And a not-so-trivial example of this propagation thing is of course seen with computer viruses. Ten minutes of hacking away to make a virus can easily lead to billions of dollars in damage throughout the world and ruin the days for countless sysadmins. Amazing-- all that with just a keyboard.
I have adopted this Dilbert as my official attitude toward life.
I also dug up an old Hall & Oates tape in my car (yes, "tape"-- I have a tape player in my car, not a CD player. Secretly, I am a Luddite). I couldn't believe how much better it sounded today to my ear than it used to. The days of musicians first getting solid training in instruments and voice before trying to record hits seems to have passed, and this tape only reminded me of the good ol' days when such was not the case. Didn't have lyrics on-line back then either (in fact they didn't have an "on-line" to speak of), so after hearing some of these old songs I looked up their lyrics (my only real criticism of their music is that they didn't seem very good at interweaving their lyrics with their beat, making it hard to understand what Hall was singing) and you know, I found out that a lot of their music doesn't have anything to do with what people think it does. I guess this is probably true for a lot of songs.
If I don't show my age in my face, I guess I show it in my musical tastes. I'm gonna be 39 next month. Ughhh...
posted by Matt Campbell at 12:09 PM
4 Comments:
Co-incidence No.1 - I was given a Dilbert desk diary as my Secret Santa present last year.
Co-incidence No.2 - One of my favourite singles (remember them ?) is still Hall and Oates 'Blue Guitar'.
Nostalga tapes ... bring 'em on !
Dilbert and Hall & Oates: It's a scientific fact that people who like Dilbert also like H&O, and vice versa. :)
Yes, singles. I used to buy singles when I was a kid, before I was told they weren't cool. I think that that was a ploy by record companies to get people to buy entire albums for more, even if you only really wanted one song. I guess the Age of MP3s has breathed new life into the whole single-song purchase thing. But you know, I don't own an MP3 player. I don't own an iPod. I don't own an XM Satellite receiver.
In 40 years I'll be the crazy old man with 10 cats who still walks places instead of beaming there.
One of the (positive) aspects of getting older is that being 'uncool' is really 'cooool'.
As much as I like Bryan Ferry and am enjoying his 'Dylanesque' album, I regularly listen to my (actual) Mr. Dylan albums.
I, too, don't own an MP3 or an iPod. I may not own an XM Satellite receiver ? I cannot say for certain because I don't know what one is ... ;-)
Why wait 40 years for your 10 cats ? A person who likes animals should be enjoying them NOW !
Why don't software engineers need malpractice? Quite simply, because the only time it could be applied, is when it couldn't.
I would guess 50% of software problems are software compatibility issues - AOL and anything else, for instance. I would hazard a guess that another 45% of software problems are hardware compatibility issues. Neither Mac nor Linux machines are immune to either of these problems, either, as anyone who has ever played with either will realize.
I'd guess the other 5% splits evenly between actual software bugs, and hardware failures.
That's by no means scientific, it's just a rough estimate based on my own experiences in the field. Most of the old Blue Screen of Death problems were hardware(Or, more specifically, firmware/driver) issues. Most of the new BSoD I've encountered have been hardware - one, for a PC camera which apparantly dumps garbage a few times a day, and the other, page filing errors for a failing hard disk.
I have a degree in the field and I still can't tell you most of the time why a piece of software failed. So if Microsoft Word suddenly crashes, taking with it your 500 hour report - was it a mistake on the part of the Office team, the OS team, or maybe an erroneous bit was written to some instruction code as it was passed back and forth from RAM? Or perhaps it was a virus.
Furthermore, evidence of damage would be very weak - a crashed Word document doesn't leave much evidence behind. Once you DO decide who is liable, how do you prove the damage that was done?
And in regard to viruses, how do you prove who wrote the virus, short somebody admitting it? (And how likely is somebody admitting to it when a 5 billion dollar lawsuit is hanging over their heads?)
Software engineers won't need malpractice insurance for a good long while. It's just too hard to pin the blame on anyone.
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