J. Timothy King’s Blog

Taking Responsibility

Some say Software Engineers aren’t real engineers, because we can’t be sued. (Well, actually we can. Anyone can.) But even if it’s atypical, we can still behave as though we can. Anyhow, the risk of lawsuit isn’t what drives professionalism!

Consider this story of “A Potentially Disastrous Design Error.” The risk of legal repercussions almost drove William J. LeMessurier to risk thousands of lives. Instead, he forthrightly took it to fix the error in his design, and he became the hero. That’s professionalism.

-TimK