More than 200 people with diabetes have been injured when their insulin pumps shut down unexpectedly due to a problem with a connected mobile app, the US Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.
More than 200 people with diabetes have been injured when their insulin pumps shut down unexpectedly due to a problem with a connected mobile app, the US Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.
And this is why I will never work in biotech, finance or (especially) military software engineering
I don’t want the risk of something I do causing direct harm to another person
I have only written potentially life-threatening code once in my life. It had to do with voltage/current regulation in the firmware of a high-powered instrument used by field workers at the company where I work. It was a white-knuckled week I spent on just a single page of code, checking and re-checking it countless times and unit testing it in every conceivable way I could imagine.
In the military, direct harm is the only goal. Not quite like the others.
I think I could get very nervous coding for the military, depending on what sort of application I was working on. If it were some sort of administrative database, that doesn’t sound so bad. If it were a missile guidance system, on man! A single bug and there goes a village full of civilians. Even something without direct human casualties could be nerve-wracking. Like if it were your code which bricked a billion-dollar military satellite.
Speaking of missile guidance systems, I once met someone who worked a stint for a military contractor. He told me a story about a junior dev who discovered an egregious memory leak in a cruise missile’s software. The senior dev then told him “Yeah, I know about that one. But the memory leak would take an hour before it brings the system down and the missile’s maximum flight time is less than that, so no problem!” I think coding like that would just drive me into some OCD hell.
yeah. doing a bad job could even save lives. it would be a moral duty to screwup /s (yes I know that is not how it works)
Oh, I thought you were supposed to be protecting my country. I guess that oil money is too tempting
That’s what I thought before but it doesn’t matter. In medical devices you need good programmers and there are a fuckton of rules and tests to make sure that devices are safe. It’s also very regulated and usually well planned.
Medical companies are the best for this because we’re all accountable directly or indirectly and we do our best. I know I would not work for another kind of coding job because they would all feel too random.
I know mistakes can happen, but it’s the best environment you can work in if you’re a developer. Also you learn a lot and are surrounded with good devs who will make you better.
Anyway, I’m not trying to convince you but we need people who doubt and could be careful. It’s not at every job but usually it’s: planning is good, overtime is not acceptable because it shows bad planning, tests are everywhere (all kinds of tests), merge requests are serious business (your merge request can sit for weeks before being integrated), doc is central and you have to be a part of it, etc.
Last but not least you can still find the PDF of the IEC 62304 which shows every step that should be made to write medical software, and it could make you a better developer even if you’re not working in that field.
Or aerospace
what about that kid on the front page of the new york times that bought a rose gold lambo and retired at 30… he made a police scanner app… no mention of how its been used to kill and rob and avoid getting caught. he’s pictured in the article weilding a flame thrower standing in front of his car, no mention of ethics.
I’m not pro police by any metric, but cartels 100％ use the app for murder and human trafficing, not a second thought, check out this 30 year old’s lambo
TIL police scanners are one weird trick for free infinite murders!
Lol, what? More so than a firearm, that app is a tool. Scanners can be used to increase vigilance and engagement in a community, and to keep citizens informed about possibly very high stakes goings-on. In most places in the US, at least, it is your right to monitor any cleartext comms as long as you are not a convicted felon.