In a programmer’s mind

In case you have been wondering why I have not been writing as much as I did in the last few weeks, it is because I was on vacation in Italy. Which brings me to my next post: how much reliable your software must be?

According to those responsible for the train schedule software in Rome’s main train station, Roma Termini, not much.

The first monitor picture was taken on June 13rd and the second monitor picture was taken on June 27th. It seems like not much has been done to correct the situation between these dates or that whatever was tried, it got worse.

I like those kind of photos. They show you that you are the only one making production applications crash and burn.

Let’s get back to my main question in regards to this situation. How much reliable Rome software that display train schedules must be? I think it is okay if it is down once in a while because it is a redundant system to the main mechanical board and to the each platform boards. Even if the software is down, you can easily find out what are the schedules, the arrivals and the departures. My concerns is that I have never seen it work the whole time I was there.

From the start of your project, you should know how much reliable you want your software to be and how much efforts you should put in order to achieve that level. Building a software to be used in a spacecraft is different from building a calendar software for your grandma.

So how much your software must be? My first answer would be it depends on the situation.

• Is it powering a critical system?
• Are people’s life at risk if it fails?
• Are people’s investment at risk if it fails?
• How many person are going to use your software? Are they able to perform their work if your software fails?

Asking yourself those questions is probably a good start. The important part is that you should know about it and be aware about it. Remember Murphy’s law.

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.