Huh. I learned a different lesson from Therac-25: "never write mission-critical software." :)
For those who haven't read it, http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf
For those who haven't read it, http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf
1. Those who read about Therac-25 and decide never to work on any systems where bugs could threaten lives (your chosen course, and mine).
2. Those who read about Therac-25, get frightened, and work very carefully on such systems.
3. Those who read about Therac-25 and think, "Those idiots! Good thing I'd never make a mistake like that."
The prevalence of (3) in all professions and walks of life is kind of frightening.
If you dig into the details of why its programmers and their managers killed people, it's very easy to say "I'd never be that irresponsible", but still screw up with much more subtle bugs.
:)
But it can be stressful to write software that has a very direct impact on peoples lifes. While I was rolling out an updated version of an inhouse application a serious bug was discovered. The application was used as part of chemotherapy follow-up/planning and on some occasions it gave the wrong answer for a test. I discovered that the bug was old and that wrong answers had been given for a long period. Personally I was relieved that I had not caused the bug, but from a medical perspective it would have been better if the bug was new and had only affected very few patients.
My takeaway from that experience is that care should be taken when writing critical software, but also that we will make mistakes and it is very important to always focus on how we can make fewer mistakes instead of pointing fingers.