review articles

Doi: 10.1145/1498765.1498787

Who could fault an approach that offers
greater credibility at reduced cost?
BY DAnieL JAcKSon
A Direct Path
to Dependable
Software
SoftWare PlayS a

fundamental role in our
society, bringing enormous benefits to all fields.
But because many of our current systems are
highly centralized and tightly coupled, ³³ we
are also susceptible to massive and
coordinated failure.

A Chicago hospital lost its entire pharmacy database one night, and it was only able to reconstruct medication records for its patients by collecting paper printouts from nurses’ stations. In their report on this incident, ⁶ Richard Cook and Michael O’Connor concluded: “Accidents are signals sent from deep within the system about the sorts of vulnerability and potential for disaster that lie within.” Similar signals have been asent, for example, in the fields of electronic voting, ²⁴ air traffic control, ¹³ nuclear power, ²⁵ and energy distribution. ³⁴

The growing tendency to embed

78 communicAtionS of the Acm | APriL 2009 | voL. 52 | no. 4