Expecting to Fail

A few days ago, after the latest in a seemingly never ending string of problems that interrupted connectivity between two of our data centers, coworker #1 said something like “why can’t we have a network that just works?!” The exasperation in his voice is something we all felt to some degree or another. Moments later coworker #2 piped up and said “if our network was perfect, the software you write wouldn’t be nearly as robust.”

There‚Äôs a lot of truth to that. I find myself writing software a bit differently now than I did seven or eight years ago, even though I was working on high-traffic web sites then and still am now. The single biggest difference is that I try to expect everything to fail. Everything…

Read More