Re:Closing Keynote with Leslie Lamport at Scale 22x: Coding ...
by feoren on Tuesday March 25, 2025 @01:59PM
(#43474053)
> some underlying public interest ... I think we should have these kinds of rules for people who design bridges, medical equipment, and passenger airplanes. I don’t think we should have these rules for people who design hard drive controllers, compilers, and physics simulation software.
You mean the hard drives that are storing inspection records for those bridges, and the compilers that were used to build that medical-equipment software, and the physics simulation software that was used to verify the required load strength of that passenger airplane?
Re:Closing Keynote with Leslie Lamport at Scale 22x: Coding ...
by fc417fc802 on Tuesday March 25, 2025 @05:08PM
(#43475988)
It's up to the (licensed) people working in the high risk industry to account for the potential issues caused by any "consumer" level gear they choose to incorporate. If you require audited and certified simulation software then it's on you (the licensed professional) to choose to use that instead.
Verified programming languages and compilers for safety critical systems are a thing. Khronos even has some APIs for use in safety critical applications.
Like, you’re developing some land, and it turns out you need a geotechnical engineer. The engineer you hired is certified, their plans get put on file with government records office, and the contractors you hire are responsible for following those plans. Among other things, it creates a paperwork trail to figure out who gets the blame if your building collapses and takes out three neighboring apartment complexes with it.
I think we should have these kinds of rules for people who design bridges, medical equipment, and passenger airplanes. I don’t think we should have these rules for people who design hard drive controllers, compilers, and physics simulation software.