That's why I don't really (knowingly) want to work on something that could ruin lives if there's a bug. medical devices? Hell no. (But you never know where your code ends up running.)
As you said this didn't just involve software issues to get that big, but I still wonder how all the devs that worked on this over the years could just shrug it off all these years. You can't tell me not a single dev got wind of these issues. Did they just immediately jump to "impossible I'm the most awesome person on this planet no way there's a problem these people all just stole money". I'd have sleepless nights going over the whole system in my mind trying to figure out where things went wrong. Is this some sort of dunning -kruger going on? I don't really consider myself a coding wizard or anything, but I think I know about enough to know I'll keep producing bugs til the day I die. Rust won't stop logic bugs from happening.
Perhaps your humility qualifies you for it! It strikes me that the problems aren’t caused by lack of technical chops per se - it’s almost always because people don’t consider the possible downsides of mistakes and act accordingly.
Well it was basically some banking software… I'm following a BBC podcast about the story, and basically the managers and investigators at the post office knew there were issues.
They told every single victim "you're the only one who's claiming there are issues".
Not any old private company. The government just happens to own all the shares
"The Post Office is owned by the government, through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and UK Government Investments (UKGI), however, the Post Office Ltd Board has responsibility for the operations of the Post Office" [0]
And "The Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy holds government responsibility for postal affairs, including the Post Office" ... "the Post Office Ltd
remains accountable to the government" [0]
