Inklings: a tumblelog

Alan Kay: Is Computer Science an Oxymoron?

I don’t know of a single computing system that is attached to you that if it fails it will almost certainly kill you. That’s what happens with jet engines.

I do, one that started working in the plane I was in an hour after I finished reading this article: the autopilot. Here’s another: pacemakers. Or modern ABS systems. Much of what “software engineers” do might no be engineering, but you can’t make that criticism about people who build critical embedded systems.