Beginning programmers go into their first job not knowing what’s normal on a software team. So it’s worth talking about the many causes of real-world software failures and how to spot them.
The Therac-25 was a radiation therapy machine made in the 1980s. Due to software issues, it caused severe radiation burns in some patients. This is one of the most thoroughly studied cases of software engineering failure. The story is not simple, so we will take our time in trying to get to the root cause of the problem. What surprised me the most, when I read about this project, was that I recognized the signs. I’ve been on teams like that.
Beginning programmers go into their first job not knowing what’s normal on a software team. So it’s worth talking about the many causes of real-world software failures and how to spot them.