Great post and I agree big time! Like you referenced near the end, the cost of negligent software to society already runs into the billions and trillions of dollars. It's hard for me to fathom how we work in this industry every day and are just happy with business as usual when those kinds of damages are happening at our hands. I think it'd be a great starting point if all software developers were familiar with the "Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice" and had to demonstrate meeting some continuing education credit requirements around ethics.
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I think we're getting away with it because, despite how bad we are at it, software just provides so much value.
That equation changes when people start to die or experience significant harm. So you see regulation on medical devices, avionics, weapon systems, cars (more and more), etc.
I think the list of regulated software areas is going to increase as we go forward.
But, yeah, there's a killing to be made if you can figure out how to reliably deliver working software with low defect rates and reasonable costs. Praxis tried but it's not clear to me how successful that venture was.
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Great post and I agree big time! Like you referenced near the end, the cost of negligent software to society already runs into the billions and trillions of dollars. It's hard for me to fathom how we work in this industry every day and are just happy with business as usual when those kinds of damages are happening at our hands. I think it'd be a great starting point if all software developers were familiar with the "Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice" and had to demonstrate meeting some continuing education credit requirements around ethics.
Thanks, Scott.
I think we're getting away with it because, despite how bad we are at it, software just provides so much value.
That equation changes when people start to die or experience significant harm. So you see regulation on medical devices, avionics, weapon systems, cars (more and more), etc.
I think the list of regulated software areas is going to increase as we go forward.
But, yeah, there's a killing to be made if you can figure out how to reliably deliver working software with low defect rates and reasonable costs. Praxis tried but it's not clear to me how successful that venture was.