The problem is: most of the worst software disasters have been perpetrated by exactly the kind of people who would get licensed under such a system, while much of the most important software in history has been written by people who would never get licensed (Linux, Python, etc etc). As appealing as it is to try and solve the software quality challenge through regulation, all the evidence seems to be that it just wouldn't work and would probably be highly counter productive.
What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
91–100 of 128 posts
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#92Certification already exists - called Functional Safety Engineer, issued by people like Exida and TUV. I hold this Certification. It is painfully slow to use performance based standards to extract users risks and needs and then produce software designed and tested to standards like IEC 61511 and IEC 61508. They are basically Q/A standards, encourage use of the V-model, defined life cycle activities etc etc in an atte…
Kind of sad that out of 83 comments, only 1 mentions "functional safety".
If you want to write SW for, say, cars, ISO safety standards exist, and you generally get your work and development audited by a 3rd party agency who will confirm whether you've conformed to the safety standards.
Conforming to those standards is not fun. And obviously, conforming to them doesn't mean your SW is actually "safe". If most engineers, managers, and auditors follow the spirit of the standards, it probably is safe.
You really don't want such rigorous standards for your average SW product.
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Occupational licensing only serves to raise barriers to entry and crowd out competition without raising quality. To put my opinion bluntly, Bernie Madoff had a license. Almost every country in the world established at one point or another some kind of licensing for various professions. I think the barrier of "this is all bullshit" is a bit higher than one bad apple for something found to be a good idea by so many p…
Look at teaching in the United States. All states require teacher licensing at public schools. However private schools do not and get better outcomes. Same thing with many unions for trades. I have yet to see any evidence a union electrician or plumber is better than a non-union worker, however unions do all they can to keep competition off the market.
Would you be willing to be treated by a Doctor without a medical license or be represented by an attorney who hasn’t taken or passed the bar exam?
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#94Speaking as someone who builds mission critical software, licensing is not the answer to this problem. Occupational licensing only serves to raise barriers to entry and crowd out competition without raising quality. To put my opinion bluntly, Bernie Madoff had a license. The things you should do to prevent catastrophic failure: - Reduce your attack surface as much as possible. - Automate your infrastructure, human in…
> Have an external firm that will try to break your systems
This is by far the most important one, and in fact, I would argue that having external code or design audit would be incredibly useful as well.
I work in a regulated area and it is amazing how well we do the things that are audited compared to the things that are not. In fact, all our systems are neatly divided into those that get audited and those that don't specifically so that we can apply all our higher standards to the audited ones. It is also important to recognise how empowering it is especially for less senior staff to be able to reference an standard or guideline and the point out that a flaw is vulnerable to discovery by audit.
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try to solve an aerospace problem with this "simple" approach. No, you don't get to add strength willy-nilly, or just swap materials on a hunch. You're working with safety factors which sometimes are less than 1 (come back for references), and those physical properties of materials are notoriously stubborn to changes. You know, some Richard Feynman once quipped "nature can't be fooled, dammit" - that extends to "wate…
safety factor less than 1? you're planning that the thing will break early?
Liquid fuel rocket engines sometimes could be planned to work under the plastic deformation stresses, not elastic stresses. Given that their life-cycle is measured in seconds, such an approach - which brings some admirable weight savings - could produce results.
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of the above changes the discussion. It's a very elaborate way of saying "writing correct software is hard". You know what's also hard to do correctly? Designing airplanes. Building skyscrapers. It's not that their designs are made flawless, it's that (in theory) the sheer volume of man-hours spent pouring over every minute detail of them, incorporating lessons learned from every failure that's ever happened in…
Writing software is not engineering - engineering is building the same thing over and over again and you slowly learn how to do it the right way. There are incremental improvements along the way - stronger lighter materials, better tools, etc. But the folks who built the Roman aqueducts could get up to speed pretty quickly on the Golden Gate Bridge. The principles of flight don't change. The fundamentals of building…
>That's what software is - every project is a brand new thing that has never been done before - there isn't 200 years of learning to fall back on.
Sorry but this is just gatekeeping bullshit. Most apps being built today by companies with the budget to build them are TODO apps, report apps, storefronts, big data mungers, CRMs, etc. They all just have different business requirements and domain specific knowledge. To think that every software project can't be categorized is ridiculous.
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#97Don't use Intel chips.
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Writing software is not engineering - engineering is building the same thing over and over again and you slowly learn how to do it the right way. There are incremental improvements along the way - stronger lighter materials, better tools, etc. But the folks who built the Roman aqueducts could get up to speed pretty quickly on the Golden Gate Bridge. The principles of flight don't change. The fundamentals of building…
>That's what software is - every project is a brand new thing that has never been done before - there isn't 200 years of learning to fall back on. Sorry but this is just gatekeeping bullshit. Most apps being built today by companies with the budget to build them are TODO apps, report apps, storefronts, big data mungers, CRMs, etc. They all just have different business requirements and domain specific knowledge. To th…
The firmware in all the electronic gizmos in your life aren't running "just apps". Much of it is poorly developed shoot from the hip code that is riddled with bugs. Some of it is running in cars and planes that manage to kill people because of hubris.
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even in the mechanical world, chicken coops aren't engineered to the same standards as skyscrapers. In software, we can build to skyscraper standards when we need to. But most of our software is done like we're building a chicken coop. And that's actually appropriate for some of it - your web app probably isn't the software equivalent of a skyscraper.
I don't know how Boeing is doing their software but 737 Max is nowhere near chicken coop. I kind of believe they use something like MISRA. Article also is not saying anything about web applications. What I have seen on my own eyes was for example airport parking lot in Eindhoven which is also not a chicken coop: https://nltimes.nl/2017/09/25/eindhoven-airport-parking-gara... On the other hand I have never seen collap…
I would hope they're using Ada.
Re: What Should We Do to Prevent Software from Failing?
#100The analogy between software "engineering" and structural engineering is used a lot to point out the failures of software. I think this analogy is a category mistake caused entirely by the misapplication of the word "engineer" to software developers. We have already solved large areas of common classes of bugs at the language level, through strong static typing, memory safety and safe concurrency (Rust is the vanguar…
None of the above changes the discussion. It's a very elaborate way of saying "writing correct software is hard". You know what's also hard to do correctly? Designing airplanes. Building skyscrapers. It's not that their designs are made flawless, it's that (in theory) the sheer volume of man-hours spent pouring over every minute detail of them, incorporating lessons learned from every failure that's ever happened in…
You're ignoring cost. Want to build software like we (were supposed to) build 737s -- to always work? Watch your costs go up by (rough guess) 10-100x.
We've generally made a decisive choice for functionality and cost over bugs.
Which isn't to say that I don't agree that there are areas: self-driving cars, airplanes (required here), human diagnostic software (already required here), etc that should have much tougher standards. But across the board ... I don't think people are willing to pay for that.