Software "engineering" doesn't kill people instantly in a flashy way, sure, but it has become more like leaded gasoline, a widespread low-level harm whose effects are increasingly evident in hindsight. You pretty much can't go more than a couple of days without hearing about another massive consumer data compromise by hackers, CVE, major services outage, etc. At some point, there is going to be a software related incident that is bad enough that the public and government is going to demand accountability.

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ge96 2 days ago | parent [-]

Boeing, insulin pumps I could think of, missiles exploding on the pylon, lot of ways software can (almost) kill instantly, like that rocket that started flying sideways due to I think switching measurement units

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dingnuts 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The Azure and AWS outages affected hospitals.

You know there had to have been increased literal pain and suffering from patients while hospitals scrambled to fall back on old methods of coordination and communication.

This shit is serious and I'm tired of people arguing that our craft should not be taken seriously.

A lot of us work on infrastructure just as vital as bridges and tunnels, and with real world consequences when these things fail.

Take some responsibility.

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HeyLaughingBoy 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Never heard of the rocket, but the software in at least the first two items is already developed to existing engineering standards by law.

	▲	ge96 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		oh it's Arian 5 integer overflow

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GrumpyYoungMan 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The things you list illustrate @aplamers point that software "doesn't really kill people". If you asked the average person on the street, they might just barely remember the Boeing incidents and the rest they probably have never heard of. Even something as gruesome as the Therac-25 incident is probably unknown to most.

It's the rising tide of low-level everyday harm from software that is going to motivate the public to start coming after the software industry.