Many programmers like to insist that they're engineers and at the same time come up with excuses for why they shouldn't be held to the same standards as other types of engineers.

Some of us just want to be engineers but know full well how difficult that actually is and want to be paid well enough to seriously research that problem. Thus most of us are experimentalists and prototype engineers, not ones making claims strong enough to be liable for.

The analogy doesn't work. Barring malicious intent or negligence leading to death I cannot imagine (or remember) a situation where the company would be fined for a software bug.

Financial regulators are happy to do it.

https://www.networkworld.com/article/2225633/software/knight...

https://www.qa-financial.com/articles/cftc-fines-societe-gen...

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/citigroup-fined-7m-over-software-b...

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-30125728

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/06/microsoft...

That is more of a failure of the imagination then. It's not like programming would cease to exist if fines were introduced.

>or negligence

Right. Companies like FB are entrusted with the private information of hundreds of millions of people. There should be investigations as there would be in a plane crash. If negligence is found, there should be appropriate punishment doled out.

This analogy does work. Boeing's software caused a plane to crash:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-crash-boeing/bo...

It's just too bad that all crimes are punished by death. Awfully unfair and disproportionate in most cases.

Would you please read the guidelines before commenting further?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is more akin to the manufactoring company finding a defect that may or may not have contributed to a crash. Facebook hasn't said anything about if this bug was actually exploited

I'm sure it would be their top priority to tell everyone that the bug was exploited.