We Programmers

This is a very new-left way of looking at the issue. This is sensationalist, irresponsible, and actively luddite.

Engineering, in case the author has forgotten, has built the cars that are the leading cause of accidental death. Engineering has budgets that have to factor in a cost of human lives. The Hoover Dam was built on a foundation slick with the blood of workmen, slain like a modern Remus.

Programmers, almost without exception, have reduced that cost in lives. I in no way feel remorse for Elaine Herzberg's death, because those cars have, by the statistics, already saved far more nameless others, who will never be a headline, or a sob story aimed to impede progress.

Would you ask a doctor to mourn and beat his breast and tear his hair at every patient he lost, over every slip in judgement, or slip of the scalpal? No! It would destroy him, and weaken his judgement for the hundreds of patients he may yet save.

To the author, yes, let's grow up and look at the human cost of code. You have a long way to go. As a child, you are fixated on a single sad story. When you realize that the safety and freedom of millions will always cost a life, and that you don't get to pick who lives and who dies, then you may write again about the moral weight of the code we write, and earn my attention.