I think it's a great analogy. If you'd like to read more without ordering the book, here's an article Gawande wrote for the New Yorker in 2007:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande Brian On 1/7/10 7:11 AM, "Jeremy Epstein" <jeremy.j.epst...@gmail.com> wrote: > Greetings, > > I was listening yesterday to an interview [1] on NPR with Dr. Atul > Gawande, author of "Checklist Manifesto" [2]. He describes the > problem that medical procedures (e.g., surgery) tend to have lots of > mistakes, mostly caused because of leaving out important steps. He > claims that 2/3 of medical - or maybe surgical - errors can be avoided > by use of checklists. Checklists aren't very popular among doctors, > because they don't like to see themselves as factory workers following > a procedure, because the human body is extremely complex, and because > every patient is unique. > > So as I was listening, I was thinking that many of the same things > could be said about software developers and problems with software > security - every piece of software is unique, any non-trivial piece of > software is amazingly complex, developers tend to consider themselves > as artists creating unique works, etc. > > Has anyone looked into the parallelisms before? If so, I'd be > interested in chatting (probably offlist) about your thoughts. > > --Jeremy > > [1] Listen to the interview at http://wamu.org/programs/dr/10/01/06.php#29280 > [2] "The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right", Atul Gawande, > Metropolitan Books. > _______________________________________________ > Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org > List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l > List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php > SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) > as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. > _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. _______________________________________________
