DEV Community

Discussion on: Is Uncle Bob serious?

 
ghost profile image
Ghost

Boing is a nice example. Legally, they have a lot of requirements about they software, and since they take it seriously, the company invest in process to achieve a great level of confidence (not only tools).

Take a look at they process:

  • internal code reviews;
  • the official QA;
  • testing;
  • verification required by DO-178C.

This shows a very mature company that have raised his level of discipline and professionalism. They probably invest a lot of money on the development team to help them become better developers and give them a environment that promotes good practices.

But I'll give you another example: I have a friend who works in a bank here in Brazil. Our government have a lot of regulation about the bank system. The people who work in the softwares who help the bank achieve those regulations found a very professional and mature environment to do they work and delivery great software. But those who work in other softwares from this bank doesn't have the same environment. They don't do code reviews, testing and a lot of other good practices. Yet, they work in pieces of software that can make the bank broke (we can say that this is safety-critical software?).

I do think that when Uncle Bob is talking about raising the level of discipline and professionalism, his talking about not only the professional, but the company too (and perhaps this is more about the company that is about the developer).

Companies who produce great software invest in people, promotes good practices (that leads to use good tools) and creates an environment where people can achieve they full potencial. And this is raising the level of discipline and professionalism for me.

Thread Thread
 
bosepchuk profile image
Blaine Osepchuk

Well said, Diego. I'm always happy to come across another developer who's as passionate about software development professionalism as I am.

I don't think bank software would typically fall under the umbrella of safety-critical software. This link shows the typical kind of industries that I think of when I think of safety-critical software: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety-criti...

I would hope banks would be subject to strict regulations that force them to create quality software but this is not my area so I don't know what that would look like.

I sure hope the people writing software for my bank are engaging in vigorous QA practices such as code reviews, unit testing, and so forth and keeping my money safe.

Thread Thread
 
mrbandit profile image
mr-bandit

Citibank just lost $900 million because of errors in processing an interest payment.
Close enough for mission critical software to me.

Thread Thread
 
nina_rallies profile image
Nina Rallies

Safety critical software have multiple layers of verification/ validation. Bank systems are not safety critical; they are security critical.
In safety critical systems, a failure can harm people ( railways, aerospace, medical devices)
A failure in security critical systems wouldn’t result in harm but rather loss/ exposure of information and assets.
The requirements to pass safety critical software standards and showing compliance with SIL ( I assume they are talking SIL4) is quite extensive.
I don’t think more professionalism is what they are lacking here.