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	<title>Cha Gascon &#187; Programming</title>
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	<description>Inexplicable Software Angst</description>
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		<title>Taylor&#8217;s Law of Programming Probability</title>
		<link>http://chasys.net/2007/08/taylors-law-of-programming-probability/</link>
		<comments>http://chasys.net/2007/08/taylors-law-of-programming-probability/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:38:14 +0000</pubDate>
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		<category><![CDATA[Programming]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[I was trying to read up on permutations, probability and combinatronics when I came upon this link &#8211; Taylor&#8217;s Law of Programming Probability. The theoretical possibility of a catastrophic occurrence in your program can be ignored if it&#8217;s less likely than the entire installation being wiped out by meteor strike. The important number here seems [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was trying to read up on permutations, probability and combinatronics when I came upon this link &#8211; <a href="http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tech/law.html">Taylor&#8217;s Law of Programming Probability</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>The theoretical possibility of a catastrophic occurrence in your program can be ignored if it&#8217;s less likely than the entire installation being wiped out by meteor strike.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>The important number here seems to be 100000000x365x24x60x60 = 3153600000000000, which we called <em>c</em> &#8211; the average number of seconds per mass extinction of life on earth. The reciprocal of this number, 1/c is the probability that all higher life on Earth will be wiped out by meteor strike in any given second. (The name c stands for the <em>catastrophe number</em>.)</p>
<p>There is just no point in worrying about anything that happens with a probability of less than one in c, because you&#8217;re more likely to be killed (along with the rest of humanity and most of the mammals, birds, etc.) during <em>this exact second</em> than you are to be bitten by your putative problem.</p></blockquote>
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