> Collins Aerospace: Sending text messages to the cockpit with test:test

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45747804

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Think about how physical engineering orgs are formed. It's a collective of engineers, as it should be. The reason is that zero consequence management abstraction layers cannot exist in a realm with true legal responsibility. Real engineering org structure is written in blood.

I wonder what it will take for software to face that reality. I know that lack of regulation leads to faster everything, and I really do appreciate and love that... but as software continues to eat the world, there will be real consequences eventually, right?

The reason that real engineering liability goes back to at least the Code of Hammurabi is that people got killed by bad decisions and corner cutting.

What will that look like in software history?

This is not a gotcha. My understanding is that bad physical engineering kills people. Is that your understanding as well?

As software takes over more and more control of everything... do you see what I am getting at? Or, not at all?

To be clear, my understanding is that physical professional engineer (PE) legal responsibility is not like the medical ethical code of "do no harm." It's just follow best practices and adopted standards, don't allow test:test login on things like fighter jets, etc. If you fail that, then there may be legal repercussions.

We have allowed software "engineering" to skip all levels of basic responsibility, haven't we?