Despite being all around us, safety-critical software isn’t on the average developer’s radar. But recent failures of safety-critical software systems have brought one of these companies and their software development practices to the attention of the public. I am, of course, referring to Boeing’s two 737 Max crashes, the subsequent grounding of all 737 Max aircraft, and its failed Starliner test flight.
How could such a distinguished company get it so wrong? Weren’t the safety standards and certification process for safety-critical systems supposed to prevent this kind of thing from happening? Where was the FAA when the Max was being certified? These questions raised my curiosity to the point that I decided to discover what this specialized field of software development is all about.
In this post I’m going to share what I learned about safety-critical software development and how a little knowledge of it might be useful to “normal” programmers like you and me.