This is Fine! A podcast about resilience engineering and software Episode 2 - Does Software Need Safety?
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Nov 21, 2024 John Allspaw, a pioneer in resilience engineering known for his impactful work at Etsy and in the DevOps movement, dives into crucial discussions about safety in software. He addresses how traditional safety concepts clash with software development realities. The conversation highlights the necessity of psychological safety for innovation and explores narrative control's role in software perception. They also examine the dynamics of change management in development, including the risks associated with code freezes and fostering open communication during deployments.
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Flickr's Growth at Yahoo
- John Allspaw's team at Flickr scaled rapidly after Yahoo acquired them, becoming the 4th most trafficked property.
- This massive growth in complexity and traffic sparked Allspaw's interest in understanding how engineers diagnose and resolve issues in complex systems.
Discovering Resilience Engineering
- Allspaw's search for answers led him to Richard Cook's paper, "How Complex Systems Fail."
- This discovery introduced him to resilience engineering and human factors research.
Software's Societal Impact
- John Allspaw views software as an information transmission medium, no less impactful than print or television.
- He argues software influences perceptions of work and can exert both positive and negative societal influences.
