Is this pertinent to high-profile safety-critical programming projects we read about ?

Question

<<It's not only the programmers who are at fault, it's also the system that drives the management. In most kinds of organized industry the need to do the politically correct thing vastly overcomes the need to make and apply the theoretically correct decision.

Often this latter thing requires one to make an improvement on the present programme or process for which there is in managerial terms no time nor budget available. So the fault remains, often causing a great deal more expense after due credit has been given for the present results. There is no investigation about it, the need to correct it and proceed to produce output is too strong. We are not driven by the need to do accurate work but instead the cheep and timely result is the aim. When will they ever learn?>>

Above terrific insight was in response to a question <<Are computer programmers extremely naive ?

(Not individually, but the organization they work in)?

At Cadbury Schweppes, people are paid to notice if there is a malfunction in the automatic canning machine. If the machine malfunctioned, and no-one noticed, tens of thousands of defective packs of cans might be packed.

Computer programmers (and I suppose I mean the admirals and politicians running the organization, because they are the people who are doing the real programming) don't seem to be being paid to notice major malfunctions.

People don't seem to possess the tools they need to help them make usable suggestions for improvement.

Suggestions need to be able to be captured, and then considered for costs and benefits, and the best suggestions, if any, used.

Without proper tools to assess the quality of suggested improvements, the organization is reduced to having to "implement" a few haphazard suggestions in order to show it is "on top of" the current problems.

So an organization, perhaps responsible for safety-critical software, is reduced to implementing suggestions proposed by staff.

[A/Have a look at this code the supplier is planning to use.

B/This angle variable is in the range 0 to 360 degrees. Shouldn't that be 0 to 359.9 ?]

The customer's suggestion to change the code to 359.9 may be poorly thought through. This is an example of a poorly thought-through "improvement".>>

Answer 1

After reading your statement I notice that philosophically perhaps the organization is a complex multi dimensional activity that coordinates on many levels and is subject to the same activity most complex organizations are subject to... The Corporate Ladder is not necessarily always the most perfect way to solve problems due to the inner needs of the humans that run the thing because they allow the infiltration of personal things and that is what makes most of the human activity on this planet tick, even when the need to be altruistic is apparent.