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The Coder Behind the Mortgage Meltdown
axjms writes "New York Magazine has a confessional/abdication from the man who wrote the software that turns mortgages into bonds and those nasty little things called CMOs. An interesting first-person account from a coder whose work reached far beyond what he or anyone could have anticipated."
Because it is a fresh story with no comments.
Or... It was...
Until you re-redified it. Thanks.
The summary makes it sound like it was all one person's fault. This can't possibly stand up to reason.
First of all, if the code was so important, it should have been reviewed, tested, etc. Bugs happen, everybody knows it. Finding and fixing the bugs before entering production is the responsibility of everyone involved in the whole process from specification to acceptance.
Secondly, even if there was an undiscovered bug in the code, that doesn't excuse those who relied on the faulty outcomes. The whole game in a free market is that the same thing has different values to different people. You must do your own calculations, based on your own inputs, using your own methods. If someone else messes up their calculations, that's your opportunity to win. Relying on someone else's numbers is a risk, and relying on them blindly is a recipe for failure.
All in all, yes, of course, if you wrote buggy software, you get the blame for that ... but it's not your fault that the bugs slip through the cracks and everybody ends up relying on your buggy software. That is their own choice.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This is over a month old.. surely we can keep it a bit more fresh, right Slashdot?
arl with a k - a blog of mine.