Therac-25 is a great case study for software engineers too, recommend reading the Wikipedia article for anyone who hasn't, it's not too long.

> Previous models had hardware interlocks to prevent such faults, but the Therac-25 had removed them, depending instead on software checks for safety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

Another interesting part of the story is the user element. The issue was most often triggered by fast, experienced technicians who were able to key commands more quickly than Therac engineers anticipated:

> After strenuous work, the physicist and operator were able to reproduce the error 54 message. They determined that speed in editing the data entry was a key factor in producing error 54.

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hinkley 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Therac is the first one I list and Knight Capital is the second. It is in fact possible to bankrupt your company by misusing feature toggles.

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throwyawayyyy 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I learned about Therac at college in the 90s.

Some years later, I interviewed at Knight Capital, just a couple of weeks before their blowup. (Dreadful interview at which I did dreadfully, being asked to write C _over the phone_ by a supremely uninterested engineer. Quite a red flag in retrospect.)

	▲	bitwize 5 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sounds like my Amazon interview.
	▲	hinkley 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I feel like you should get yourself a merit badge printed for that, sewed onto your laptop bag.
	▲	reitzensteinm 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Quite a red flag in retrospect. No pun intended?

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ErroneousBosh 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Therac-25 is a great case study for software engineers too, recommend reading the Wikipedia article for anyone who hasn't, it's not too long.

I re-read the original paper every few months, more frequently if I'm working on Safety-of-Life-Critical equipment. Which, given my day job, means I'm re-reading it every couple of weeks at most.

Keeps you sharp, doesn't it?