When Bugs Bite: why neglecting your edge cases can kill

Two people died because of a Unicode support error. Another died because of a camera’s inability to distinguish colours from one another, and yet another died because of bad GPS data. Many thousands more deaths could have been prevented by a single variable, if the developers had thought to include it.

As software developers, our skills and ideas are increasingly crucial for keeping the world running. We don’t have time to test for, find, and fix all of the bugs. Most bugs are annoying, some bugs allow for sneaky behaviour, but the most innocuous of edge cases can sometimes lead to an actual loss of life.

No software ever holds up to contact with reality, but in this talk, Lilly Ryan shows you some of the more extreme consequences of tech debt, and offers guidelines on how your team can more easily identify assumptions and eliminate edge case behaviour when developing software. That boring task hiding in your backlog might just save a life.

Transcript

1. When Bugs Bite Why Neglecting Your Edge Cases Can Kill
2. @attacus_au
10. i dotless ı dotted
13. ?
14. Your users trust you
16. Everything is a safety-critical system
17. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should.”
18. Astronaut thinking
19. How to become a land astronaut
20. 1. Ask “what if”?
21. 2. Tackle your backlog
22. 3. Remember that your users are people
23. 4. Don’t be afraid to say no
24. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
25. A developer may not build something that could injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
26. A robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm.
27. A developer may not build something to harm humanity, or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm.
28. 5. Save the world
29. How to become a land astronaut 1. Ask “what if”? 2. Tackle your backlog 3. Remember that your users are people 4. Don’t be afraid to say no 5. Save the world
30. Thank you @attacus_au
31. Some resources “A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail” http://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-do t-kills-two-people-puts-three-more-in-jail “The Code I’m Still Ashamed Of” https://medium.freecodecamp.com/the-code-im-still- ashamed-of-e4c021dff55e “A Tragic Loss” https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss “Heat kills boy, 11, lost with his mother in Death Valley” http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/08/local/me-dea thvalley8 “Astronaut Chris Hadfield on how failing can motivate” https://www.redbulletin.com/us/us/lifestyle/astronau t-chris-hadfield-explains-the-power-of-negative-think ing “Software Glitch Cripples Ambulance System” https://www.wired.com/2009/10/1026london-ambula nce-computer-meltdown/ “Therac-25” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 “Three Laws of Robotics” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Roboti cs
32. Credits • Rae Knowler, for inspiration • Honza Kral, for encouragement and feedback • Anna Ravenscroft, for Shakespeare • Frenchie, for enthusiasm and caffeine • @veorq for “quantum-secured blockchain to secure Internet of Things devices in the cloud”