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Comment by pesfandiar | Hacker News Reader

Software engineers sometimes wonder about the importance of their jobs by comparing them to other engineering fields where mistakes can hurt or kill fellow human beings. And then there are jobs that hurt or kill regardless of the quality of your work.

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Go read about the software bug that literally killed people by miscalculating the radiation dose given by a medical machine. There is software which can hurt or kill fellow human beings. Industrial controls, aircraft flight controls, the list goes on.

The number of people harmed by that ramshackle contraption never came anywhere near the number wiped out in just the one incident.

Mis-operation of the Aegis system is, BTW, also responsible for the sinking of a British warship, HMS Sheffield, in the Falklands war, with at least 87 killed. It failed to identify an Exocet missile fired by the Argentines as a threat, even though the Navy was thoroughly aware Argentina had them.. (Two other British ships were also hit by Exocets, one sunk, for a couple dozen more lives.)

Aegis is a particular system. Not a generic term for these systems. I don't believe UK ships used it.

The anti-aircraft/missile defence on Sheffield was Sea Dart. The Argentinian pilots were familiar with the type 42 destroyer type and its radar, and practiced against the Argentine's own type 42s. This might have some bearing on their success as well.

Sheffield was not equipped with Aegis. The only ships in the 1980s that had it were the American Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers. Aegis is the name of a specific anti-air system based around the SPY-1 phased-array radar and SM-2 surface-to-air missile. It is not a catch-all term like Kleenex.

> Mis-operation of the Aegis system is, BTW, also responsible for the sinking of a British warship, HMS Sheffield, in the Falklands war, with at least 87 killed. It failed to identify an Exocet missile fired by the Argentines as a threat, even though the Navy was thoroughly aware Argentina had them...

Attributing the failure to avoid the Exocets to "mis-operation of the aegis system" is pure speculation AFAIK, unless you have evidence that that was the cause?

I wonder what "jobs that hurt or kill regardless" you have in mind

* I'm stressed from working at a game studio --> but no one will die

* I'm stressed from working on avionics or medical software, or designing bridges/etc --> someone may die if I make a mistake

* I'm stressed from working as a firefighter or police officer --> someone (or myself) may die even if I don't make any mistakes

Thanks, doesn't sound like the same thing though. The text was:

"hurt or kill regardless"

which to me sounds like "someone always die" (not "may die"),

which isn't supposed to be the case when firefighters or police are working.

Anything to do with "defense" industry

Ok, depends on how you look at it. But almost always, yes

I'm not sure what you are implying. The nature of the work described above was to prevent a disaster like the shooting down of commercial Flight 655 from ever happening again.

Yes precisely, and (to GP) that's software and UX design. Not comparing with, it's that exact thing (in that case)

Nothing personal, just interesting to see how engineers think about how their work can harm other humans, yet some jobs are about creating machines or weapons meant for destruction.

In my previous job writing a naval combat system (not Aegis) I figured that I couldn't prevent warships from existing, but I could make the combat system better, safer, easier and less error-prone to use which would ultimately reduce the likelihood of people being killed inadvertently. But I totally respect people who choose not to work in defence.

Real software engineers care a lot, those with fake engineering titles after a bootcamp, not so much.

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