This is a fascinating set of slides, particularly when you think it was produced almost 20 years ago. A few of the ideas are slightly dated now as we've developed better tools and techniques to achieve the same ends, but most of the material is fundamentally sound and has stood the test of time.
For anyone who's only ever worked on projects where the emphasis is more on shipping something fast than shipping something correct, like most of the startups and web apps we discuss here on HN, these slides give a decent overview of the "alternate reality" when you're working on projects where reliability really matters and more of an engineering mindset is needed.
If nothing else, it's worth reading for the Ariane 501 case study on slides 19-22 that demonstrates just how expensive a simple programming error can be if you don't design your system defensively enough and do proper housekeeping on your code.
For anyone who's only ever worked on projects where the emphasis is more on shipping something fast than shipping something correct, like most of the startups and web apps we discuss here on HN, these slides give a decent overview of the "alternate reality" when you're working on projects where reliability really matters and more of an engineering mindset is needed.
If nothing else, it's worth reading for the Ariane 501 case study on slides 19-22 that demonstrates just how expensive a simple programming error can be if you don't design your system defensively enough and do proper housekeeping on your code.