Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Save life and assign blame

Looking for someone to blame doesn't solve the problem. I'm not saying that one should never assign blame, just that doing so doesn't actually solve anybody's problem. (If you want to blame somebody, do it at the bug post-mortem. Then you can study the conditions that led to the mistake, assign blame, if you're looking for a scapegoat, and take steps to prevent a future mistake of the same sort from occurring. As a lifeguard, you first rescue the drowning person, and then you lecture them for not wearing a life preserver.)
How true.

The Old New Thing : Doing the best we can until time travel has been perfected

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