A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
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A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
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Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#2Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#3“My heart goes out to the guys,” said Larry Tabb, the founder and chief executive of the Tabb Group, a financial research firm. “On the biggest day of their corporate history, their own platform backfired.”
Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but this quote makes it sound like Tabb really doesn't understand technology. The platform didn't "backfire", the gods of finance didn't frown upon their venture, their code was incorrect. This could have been avoided if they had found whatever bug they hit before they went live. Don't get me wrong, I also feel bad for them because it sucks to have a technical error cause anything more than debugging frustration, but this was preventable.
Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#4“My heart goes out to the guys,” said Larry Tabb, the founder and chief executive of the Tabb Group, a financial research firm. “On the biggest day of their corporate history, their own platform backfired.” Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but this quote makes it sound like Tabb really doesn't understand technology. The platform didn't "backfire", the gods of finance didn't frown upon their venture, their c…
Your interpretation of the word "backfire" is unconventional.
Also, you're trivializing the challenges likely faced by the kind of venture. It's not always possible to find all bugs, unless you want to code in Ada and formally verify things with OCaml and are trying to fly a plane.
The problem could have been caused by a strange hardware defect, a rare bug in a library, etc.
Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#5“My heart goes out to the guys,” said Larry Tabb, the founder and chief executive of the Tabb Group, a financial research firm. “On the biggest day of their corporate history, their own platform backfired.” Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but this quote makes it sound like Tabb really doesn't understand technology. The platform didn't "backfire", the gods of finance didn't frown upon their venture, their c…
Your interpretation of the word "backfire" is unconventional. Also, you're trivializing the challenges likely faced by the kind of venture. It's not always possible to find all bugs, unless you want to code in Ada and formally verify things with OCaml and are trying to fly a plane. The problem could have been caused by a strange hardware defect, a rare bug in a library, etc.
To be sure, mucking about on the stock exchanges should earn a closer comparison of QA responsibility to aeronautics.
Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#6“My heart goes out to the guys,” said Larry Tabb, the founder and chief executive of the Tabb Group, a financial research firm. “On the biggest day of their corporate history, their own platform backfired.” Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but this quote makes it sound like Tabb really doesn't understand technology. The platform didn't "backfire", the gods of finance didn't frown upon their venture, their c…
Everything is preventable (or more correctly, predictable) when you know everything about the system. If we knew everything about the quanta of the universe, we'd know when solar flares and neutrinos and alpha particles were going to affect our satellites and other electronics.
Since we don't know everything (not even everything about our own creations like stock exchange markets and software systems), it becomes risk management. After writing software for decades, I still have no idea whether these circumstances were predictable let alone preventable, but perhaps they could have spent more time considering the minutia of the system writing more tests or whatever. Yes, the mistake was the fault of the humans designing and implementing the system. But that could be said of any (non-natural, human-made) system that fails.
At some point, someone has to decide that code should just be shipped. We're not perfect enough as people to build bug-free systems. Risk comes with releasing "unproven" code. And yes, it's embarrassing when the fit hits the shan in front of the whole world. But I try to avoid becoming one of those jaded people that can't tolerate mistakes on behalf of others nor can admit their own.
Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#7“My heart goes out to the guys,” said Larry Tabb, the founder and chief executive of the Tabb Group, a financial research firm. “On the biggest day of their corporate history, their own platform backfired.” Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but this quote makes it sound like Tabb really doesn't understand technology. The platform didn't "backfire", the gods of finance didn't frown upon their venture, their c…
Your interpretation of the word "backfire" is unconventional. Also, you're trivializing the challenges likely faced by the kind of venture. It's not always possible to find all bugs, unless you want to code in Ada and formally verify things with OCaml and are trying to fly a plane. The problem could have been caused by a strange hardware defect, a rare bug in a library, etc.
>The problem could have been caused by a strange hardware defect, a rare bug in a library, etc.
Or competition, a disgruntled employee, etc. Just speculating but IMO it's a pretty big coincidence that it failed exactly when they did the IPO.
Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your interpretation of the word "backfire" is unconventional. Also, you're trivializing the challenges likely faced by the kind of venture. It's not always possible to find all bugs, unless you want to code in Ada and formally verify things with OCaml and are trying to fly a plane. The problem could have been caused by a strange hardware defect, a rare bug in a library, etc.
To be sure, mucking about on the stock exchanges should earn a closer comparison of QA responsibility to aeronautics.
In my opinion, not at all. The stock exchange is an inherently risky market; everbody knows that. The only responsibility you have is to yourself and your own money. That's a far cry from aeronautics.
Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#9Off-topic but related:
I infer from the articles that shares from a given company can be traded on multiple stock exchanges. Can someone knowledgeable confirm that this is right? In that case, why is the symbol for Apple "NASDAQ:AAPL" on Google Finance? http://www.google.com/finance?q=apple
Re: A fast paced stock exchange trips over itself
#10“My heart goes out to the guys,” said Larry Tabb, the founder and chief executive of the Tabb Group, a financial research firm. “On the biggest day of their corporate history, their own platform backfired.” Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but this quote makes it sound like Tabb really doesn't understand technology. The platform didn't "backfire", the gods of finance didn't frown upon their venture, their c…
Everything is preventable (or more correctly, predictable) when you know everything about the system. If we knew everything about the quanta of the universe, we'd know when solar flares and neutrinos and alpha particles were going to affect our satellites and other electronics. Since we don't know everything (not even everything about our own creations like stock exchange markets and software systems), it becomes ris…
I think I came off a bit too grumpy. I full-well know that every bug can't be eradicated before a launch, and I don't hold any ill-will against BATS for it, I was more trying to comment on the persistence of the idea that computers are magic which sometimes rise up to act against their creators. As another comment said, I guess my interpretation of "backfire" is a bit too narrow.