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Ben Cox

@tef Reliability engineering involves a lot of repeatedly asking the question "and what if THAT fails?"

19 July at 14:35 | Wall-to-wall | Open on pgh.social
7 comments
tef

@ben not sure i agree, taking a reductionist approach to the problem tends to lead to devs obsessing over specific examples of problems over seeing the broader picture of risk management and operating within safety margins

19 July at 14:39 | Open on mastodon.social
Ben Cox

@tef It depends on where your focus is I guess. If you're in an industry where a mistake means someone gets killed, you do have to get down into those weeds.

19 July at 14:45 | Open on pgh.social
tef

@ben reliability engineering is coping in the face of unknown errors, and your process is about coping with predicted risk

focusing on the accidents you know is missing out on the broader systematic process of managing risk

that's my point

19 July at 14:50 | Open on mastodon.social
tef

@ben the other, perhaps more salient point here, is that when you take the approach of going "ahahah! what if!" consistently in risk management you inevitably set up an atagonistic relationship with the people you're trying to help

it's alarm fatigue and everything you say sounds like "what if the sun collapses!"

there's always a point in which you throw your hands up and declare an act of god

or you end up with the ye old example of a reinforced door bolted to walls made of plasterboard

19 July at 14:53 | Open on mastodon.social
Ben Cox

@tef If you assume competence on the part of the safety engineers, it doesn't have to be that way.

You know nothing about my process other than a throwaway quip I made.

19 July at 15:24 | Open on pgh.social
Ben Cox

@tef I guess you've misunderstood mine.

19 July at 15:18 | Open on pgh.social
The Janx Devil

@ben It also involves frequently asking “Are the people doing the reliability engineering work getting enough sleep on the regular?”

19 July at 15:14 | Open on sfba.social
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