Exploring the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming. Learning to work with the systems, not against them.
Human Software 282 - IT Failures Cost Lives
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The Horizon Post Office Scandal is one of the biggest IT failures in recent times, directly responsible for thirteen of the wrongly accused taking their own lives after prosecutions were brought against them. There is a highly technical deep dive into the findings made by Computer Weekly in this incredible Corecursive podcast episode. It is worth a detailed listen if you want to understand how this could come about and what systemic failings caused it to be covered up for so long. Software systems are not just hard to build, but also tough on the individuals who have to run and maintain them. While many firms are now rolling back "working from home" directives and forcing engineers back into the office, we have to ask ourselves if we want to be an industry where we continue to allow ourselves to be cajoled into funnelling our passions into working long hours supporting flaky, potentially critical systems. If an accounting system like Horizon could misfire so badly and cause such a tragedy, surely any system we work on has the potential to cause loss of life. Should there be a call to slow down the headlong rush towards more and more automation? And now that LLMs and AI can write applications for us, who is responsible when something goes wrong? Would an AI (or the creators of a Large Language Model) ever be taken to court for unintended effects of faulty code? Probably its only a matter of time before we see this type of narrative playing out. I'm just wrapping up a wonderful week in the UK and heading home to Amsterdam. After being at Fast Flow conference, and having a launch event in London on Wednesday, I'm pretty tired but very happy with how things are going with Human Software. If you have read it and would like to leave a review that would really help me out! Here's an Amazon review link that might work for you, or log on to your Amazon account and review the purchase. You can also leave a review on Goodreads. I'm leaving a few signed copies behind at Hope and Lane Coffee Shop in Deal. Get 'em while they are hot. Have a great Sunday! |
The Human Engineer
Exploring the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming. Learning to work with the systems, not against them.
Conference season hit Amsterdam last month with the global juggernaut that is Kubecon but I eschewed the noise of that particular enormous techie event and went instead to the writer-friendly event "Stories Unfold" at Amsterdam's OBA theatre. This was a very pleasant evening giving a selection of self-published and traditionally published authors a stage to share the stories behind their books and also highlighted a new compilation of short stories. The audience was very much made up of...
Twenty years ago I was living in Taunton in the South-West of the UK and travelling by car to work in Bournemouth to work for a big, famous American investment bank as a technical consultant. I'd been hired to be part of a helpdesk which was on-call to supply first line support to portfolio managers who were booking trades for their clients. But me being a techie, I was there to bring technical expertise and solutions to a team that was struggling. I aced the assignment. Providing a technical...
January is over. The longest month! I managed to get a break in Chamonix, nominally to do some skiing, but for the most part it was marvelling at the beauty of it all. The world around us. So, I'm in the alps taking a break from the uncertainty of the present and facing my own mortality on the gentlest slopes near Mont Blanc. It's wonderful being up there with friends, I feel very lucky, and I also don't feel any real need to push myself like I would have done in the older days. I went out...