[codewhisperer]

It's worth noting that the professional engineer or doctor is as much an ideal as the professional computer programmer. Doctors actually don't wash their hands as often as they know they should (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24wwln_freak.html). Engineering failures occur with sufficient frequency to merit a civil engineering dailywtf (http://www.icivilengineer.com/Failure_Watch/), though thankfully not updated daily.

This is not to say that the failure of those professions to live up to their ideal should excuse us. We equally have a responsibility to the quality of our code. The solution is nothing so easy as an unread code of ethics or a well-it's-just-money justification for sloppiness. A lot of code actually does risk lives -- fly by wire systems, automated storm dams, anything in a nuclear power plant. The risking of lives isn't sufficient to make surgeons follow well known infection prevention protocols. For them as for us there have to be cultural changes which value slow and steady repeatable processes over wunderkind acts of brilliance.