Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
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Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
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Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#2Those of you with a membership in ACM or IEEE, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on why you do.
Those of you who don't, would you consider pledging yourself to a code of ethics if they met your requirements? What would those requirements be?
Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#3Those of you with a membership in ACM or IEEE, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on why you do. Those of you who don't, would you consider pledging yourself to a code of ethics if they met your requirements? What would those requirements be?
If it meant having a job or not, sure I guess.
Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#4Those of you with a membership in ACM or IEEE, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on why you do. Those of you who don't, would you consider pledging yourself to a code of ethics if they met your requirements? What would those requirements be?
If it meant having a job or not, sure I guess.
What if sticking to it meant that you'd have to resign? A code of ethics that you have to sign for work is one thing. A code of ethics that you hold above employment is quite another.
Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#5We can write software like this.
The reason why we don't has been explained many times: It's too expensive, by many orders of magnitude.
Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#6We can write software like this. The reason why we don't has been explained many times: It's too expensive, by many orders of magnitude.
I don't mean to say that all code has to be bug free; certainly, I hope the life-safety critical code is. But I think we, as hackers and software engineers, need to consider the ramifications that bugs can have, and then making the decision based on that balance of risk.
Take an anonymous currency system, for example. Handwave away whether or not that it's actually possible to build one -- let's say you have a way to create electronic, untraceable money, and let's go one step further and say that there's no personal risk to doing so (e.g., it creates no criminal or civil liability to doing so, and costs nothing).
Do you build that, or not?
Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#7When people bring up a code of ethics, actuaries seem to come up a lot because they can potentially lose their license for mis-evaluating risks, but anecdotally what I've heard is that in reality if your boss asks you to sign off on something, and you refuse they'll find someone else to sign off on it and just label you as not a team player. At which point you've harmed your career and had no real impact.
I bring this up because when people propose a code of ethics, they assume it will help, but I'm not really convinced that we will really get to a point where codes of ethics are widespread and taken seriously enough that they will do anything but harm the altruists among us.
Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#8When people bring up a code of ethics, actuaries seem to come up a lot because they can potentially lose their license for mis-evaluating risks, but anecdotally what I've heard is that in reality if your boss asks you to sign off on something, and you refuse they'll find someone else to sign off on it and just label you as not a team player. At which point you've harmed your career and had no real impact. I bring thi…
That's true. Is there a value to refusing to do work, even though it might not be able to stop something from being built in spite of it?
If you know, a priori, refusing to work on something you consider to be unethical will have /zero/ effect on the overall project, but negatively affect you, is it then ethical to do the work, or are you required to fall on your sword?
Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#9There's no such thing as bug free code. So yes, I've deployed coffee I knew had bugs. And if I took twice as long, and spent the extra time checking, it would still have bugs...
Re: Executing Software Engineers for Bugs
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it meant having a job or not, sure I guess.
What if sticking to it meant that you'd have to resign? A code of ethics that you have to sign for work is one thing. A code of ethics that you hold above employment is quite another.
On the spot? Probably not, no. I would begin looking for work elsewhere though, possibly in a different field.