I think this is a false equivalence. If a programmer has a medical emergency during their working hours that’s terrible but doesn’t put others in danger.
A co-pilot isn't just useful for medical emergencies. They can double-check judgments, decisions, and plans as well. Because people sometimes interpret signals incorrectly or misunderstand contexts.
That can happen to a programmer just as much as a pilot, and it can be even more destructive. You could argue software generally isn't life and death, but who knows? You might end up working on something like curl or sqlite which may well have played part in the implementation of emergency services in some country.
> I think ultimately, at the end of the day, I expect and hope that every human I work with is a competent, solid individual contributor and requires a second pair of eyes e.g. through code review or pairing to produce quality work.
But that's not what the comment I responded to said!
That can happen to a programmer just as much as a pilot, and it can be even more destructive. You could argue software generally isn't life and death, but who knows? You might end up working on something like curl or sqlite which may well have played part in the implementation of emergency services in some country.