Developer given Mission:Impossible - fixing rubbish code that could crash a city - simply chose not to accept it
After imagining explosions, blackouts, and daring escapes, this techie decided the best thing to do was just not doing the job
A software developer faced a daunting task: fixing code at a power station that had the potential to crash an entire city. Socrates, a fresh-faced manager, was tasked with visiting the site to help install monitoring hardware for a client. The system was poorly documented, and Socrates, confident in his programming skills, was eager to tackle the challenge.
Upon arriving at the power station, Socrates was greeted by massive rotating machines and complex wiring. He found a dusty CP/M computer with I/O cards connected to the machinery. Despite his lack of knowledge in electricity generation, Socrates deduced that overspeeding of the turbines could be extremely dangerous, comparing it to a scene from Mission:Impossible where Tom Cruise narrowly avoids a helicopter attack.
Realizing the code was poorly structured and containing random GOTO statements, I/O accesses, and arithmetic operations with arbitrary numbers, Socrates decided the best course of action was to leave the system as-is. He recognized that some things are best left untouched. Socrates now views this experience as a valuable life lesson about when to step back and avoid meddling with complex systems.
Written by urgent.news from The Register Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
