[jrmenon]

> Software engineering in life-critical applications is serious business.

Probably one of the most tragic cases of a SW bug:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

[angersock]

Yep. And that's why you really, really want hardware failsafes in addition to whatever nonsense code you're writing.

[hga]

True, but those are not always possible, nor can cover everything.

What struck me the most was the criminal incompetence of the developers, both of the total system as it moved to software control and especially the software itself. Not to mention the Crown Corporation's response to the problem.