The incident that highlighted the importance of code quality

Have you heard about the “Therac-25 incident”?

The Therac-25 was a radiation therapy machine used for cancer treatment in the 1980s.

The software was designed to control the radiation dosage delivered to patients, but a race condition in the software led to massive overdoses of radiation being administered to patients, causing severe injuries and even death.

Yeah just because of a bad code.

But what can we take from it?

Testing: Some very small apps doesn’t really need testing, but when we’re dealing with user’s privacy and security especially people lives, should you do testing was never a question.

Safety-Critical Design Practices: The importance of applying safety-critical design practices, such as redundant systems, fail-safes, and thorough risk analysis, especially in systems that can cause information leakage or harm if they malfunction.