Risks are your responsibility

• Published in: Communications of the ACM Vol. 50; no. 6; p. 104
• Main Author: Freeman, Peter A
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Association for Computing Machinery 01.06.2007
• Subjects: Information systems; Product testing; Risk; Systems development; United States > US
• ISSN: 0001-0782; 1557-7317
• DOI: 10.1145/1247001.1247028

In his February 2007 column, Peter Neumann mentioned some failures that resulted from inadequate attention to the architecture of the overall system when considering components. But many developers cannot influence or even comprehend the system architecture. So, how can they be held responsible in such a situation? Although many system failures can be detected and prevented without reference to the system architecture, professionals working on isolated components still have professional - indeed, moral - duties to ensure their results are ask risk-free as possible. Various proposed analysis techniques can be applied to representations of computer-based systems, but many are neither proven nor widely used. The prevalence of testing rather than proving or assuring via simulation in the world of computer systems is a clear indication of the lack of practical, intellectual tools that are so vital in other areas of engineering.