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OH YEA. FIX ON FAILURE IS A GREAT IDEA !!!

And here are some thoughts on WHY IT WONT WORK!!!

Why don't we just go ahead and hard wire all of the circuit breakers NOW and see what smokes?

Fix On Failure is a bad idea when the system that fails has serious safety related functions.

Take out all of the safety redundancy in a complex and potentially dangerous process and then stand next to it YOURSELF. Yea right. That four foot diameter pipe carrying contaminated volatiles to the flare just rolled over you and you are now dead.

FIX THAT ON FAILURE!!!

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FOR ALL OF THE FIX ON FAILURE SUPPORTERS --- THE CHEERLEADERS FOR FIX ON FAILURE

You need to remember something:

All of these trains, chemical plants, refineries, nuclear power plants, etc. are staffed by flesh and blood people. Not robots.

Flesh and blood runs for cover. Flesh and Blood doesnt willingly take a kick to the groin.

Flesh and blood will tell the fix on failure crowd to STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE!!!

You ever heard the expression, "You die and some other hairy legs will be drinkin your beer and huggin the ole lady"?

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FIX ON FAILURE-- You've got to be kidding. Right?

Another interesting bit of information to get concerning Fix On Failure would be:

What is the ratio of technically qualified remediaters to remediation tasks to be performed?

In other words, HOW MANY YEARS WILL THIS TAKE?

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Fix on failure will probably work ok somewhere, but at the moment I cant think of where it would be.

Im sure some big brain somewhere can rationalize it all out. Just so long as the failure doesnt put them at personal risk.

And just so long as they wont be worried about who might be drinking their beer and squeezin their ole lady after theyre gone.

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 01, 1999

Answers

Simplistic dooming is no better than simplistic polly-theism. Whether FOF works depends on what fails and what the surrounding infrastructure is doing and who is doing the fixing and whether they give a rat's and what the failed system is needed for and ....

I have repaired a system that totally melted down, datawise, and it was a whole lot easier to fix in its failed state than it would have been to fix while it was running. I'm talking major state-level driver licensing system, sorry, no names. There are lots of systems that take six months to remediate but will take only days to fix when failed.

How many are like that? Nobody knows. Cory is perfectly right when he scoffs at the "fix in, oh, two, three days" crowd, because it's foolish to think that will be a widespread phenomenon. It is equally foolish to think that there can not POSSIBLY be any useful FOF.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), October 01, 1999.

A drivers license system isn't likey to harm anyone directly at the moment it fails.

I was speaking in very general terms about the human element in systems which can and/or do cause extensive property damage, injury and death when they fail.

The human element in general terms as it relates to cause and effect in a dangerous production environment hasn't been the source of discussion here. And with the growing interest in discussion of Fix On Failure, I thought it appropriate to toss this aspect into the discussion. A sharply divergent negative change in safety conditions in trains, refineries, chemical plants, nuclear power plants, high-tension power transmission systems and many other areas will undoubtedly result in reluctance of the workers within those systems.

This is a point which hasn't been adequately taken into account as a part Fix On Failure.

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 01, 1999.

Oh yea, and by the way these examples and point of view are NOT simplistic dooming just because you don't work in or have familiarity with working in a life threatening environment, while you are on the job.

Many people who have to face REAL DANGER on the job daily understand the mentality I am talking about.

Find someone who switches high voltage, high current lines on within a local power company electrical station. Ask them if they have been able to forget the first time they saw that huge flash arcing across the points high in the air above their head and the sound it made. Ask them about taking chances with sudden failure of safety systems.

Or talk to a chemical plant worker who has seen an explosion kill his buddies and throw thousands of pounds of pipe several miles. See how he feels about taking unnecessary risks on the job. How about waiting to see if the whole plant fails in a fireball ending his career. I don't think so.

Fix on Failure will work on some things and not on others.

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 01, 1999.

You're right, the licensing system failure was fairly benign. We still could drink our coffee.

I agree entirely about the worker reluctance to go into a suddenly dangerous environment. When I saw what people were willing to do at Chernobyl, it was awe-inspiring. Cannot imagine that. And I also agree that your point has not been discussed much. But those issues were less than half of your post, so I thought you were criticizing FOF in general.

BTW, much of your audience will tune you out, if you use terms like "ole lady".

-- bw (home@puget.sound), October 01, 1999.

The biggest area where FOF isn't a good idea is in embedded systems.

This is because the replacement boards (and it's boards or entire units that have to be replaced with embedded systems) won't work any better than the failed boards.

In addition to that, most embedded systems use 'generic' boards -- that is, boards that are used in many different kinds of embedded systems in many different industries, all around the world. This will lead to a huge demand for replacements boards, all of the same kind (to replace the failed boards).

Getting these boards made and shipped with a deteriorating infrastructure could be a huge problem, with many places needing the boards not being able to get them for years.

-- Dean -- from (almost) Duh Moines (dtmiller@midiowa.net), October 01, 1999.