HW5: Reflections

The Therac-25 article showed the very scary reality of what can happen when software engineers can be overconfident and not be extra careful when designing software for equipment that involves other peoples lives. Radiation machines need to be handled with extra care because they can be the determinate on whether someone lives or dies and radiation treatment is so expensive the equipment needs to be top notch. Like most people, I know a lot of people who have had cancer and have had to get radiation treatment. So, these accidents were especially scary and disturbing to read about. I cannot imagine the horror of a family member or someone I know getting radiation treatment and them feeling an electric shock or a "red hot sensation." And then that person having horrible radiation burns. The worst part is that the AECL knew about the first accident where the sixty-one year old woman had to have her breast removed and lost use of her shoulder and arm AND was in constant pain. The AECL knew about this and did not report it to the FDA until later accidents had occurred. So while yes the accidents were caused by software engineering faults. There could have been maybe only one or two accidents instead of six accidents (that we know of there could be a few more) if the AECL had been responsible and looked into it and reported it to the FDA. Also it was very frustrating to hear that Therac-25 operators had become accustomed to frequent malfunctions. Maybe more reporting malfunctions to AECL from the operators could have prevents other accidents. The lack of testing and review from the AECL and slack and laziness from software engineers caused people to die or to be horribly injured. This just goes to show how careful software engineers and their employers need to be when creating a product that can determine whether someone lives or dies.

The FBI auto warning was another interesting article. Hearing about hacking into a car and controlling functionalities like breaks, engine, steering, and door locks sounds like something out of a mission impossible movie. Luckily for me, my car is a 2003 model with no on board computer and definitely no WiFi or cellular carrier. Software engineers that create computers and UI for cars probably have security low on their priority list if it is even on the list at all. This goes to show that they really must prioritize it more if they want to keep their customers safe from potential cyber security attacks.

All articles are related by the common factor of software engineers not being careful enough in their development process and not doing enough testing on their code before releasing it. The article titled "Why Software Projects Fail, and the Traps You Can Avoid That Could Spell Disaster," pretty much says everything the FBI software engineers were doing wrong. The FBI sentinel project's biggest problem was time management which is one of the traps that "Why Software Project Fail..." talks about.