A decade ago, as I was stressing out about an upcoming go-live, my boss at the time (a wonderful, caring, thoughtful person) provided well-intended advice; he said something like "My wife is a doctor; when she does her job poorly people die! Cheer up, we just move code around".
It was intended to a relatively junior architect to provide some perspective; and perspective is indeed important.
But I think in IT, much more often we commit the opposite error - we are too disconnected from consequences of our seemingly abstract, technical, impersonal work.
I currently work on a massive Payroll ERP. In many ways a boring, uncool system. But if we don't do our job right, people don't get paid right, and while that may not have the same immediate impact as a doctor mistake, it's... very much a real human impact. And more of us could probably draw a line from IT error to human impact if we consciously actively tried to.
Devastating story, every time I read about it. Should be taught in Computer Science universities alongside the Therac-25 and few other choice cases :|
It was intended to a relatively junior architect to provide some perspective; and perspective is indeed important.
But I think in IT, much more often we commit the opposite error - we are too disconnected from consequences of our seemingly abstract, technical, impersonal work.
I currently work on a massive Payroll ERP. In many ways a boring, uncool system. But if we don't do our job right, people don't get paid right, and while that may not have the same immediate impact as a doctor mistake, it's... very much a real human impact. And more of us could probably draw a line from IT error to human impact if we consciously actively tried to.
Devastating story, every time I read about it. Should be taught in Computer Science universities alongside the Therac-25 and few other choice cases :|