Brooks in the Mythical Man-Month writes "The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination." Software, which allows us to control everything from a bedside alarm clock to a deep space mission is fiendish stuff. We have to be so correct, so disciplined in what we write to ensure the correct outcomes.

Like all engineering disciplines, Software demands that we consider functionality, performance, reliability and the ease with which humans can use the software. All these factors must be properly addressed before the software can be considered successful. If we get it wrong the consequences can be very bad. Witness the Horizon IT system, an accounting software system used by the UK Post Office, developed by Fujitsu. The fallout from that scandal is ongoing - people committed suicide on the basis of wrongful convictions. Australia had a similar disaster called Robodebt overseen by Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Christian Porter - all Liberal party politicians.

When we get the software right, the results can be outstanding. The fly-by-wire system in Airbus aeroplanes, the imaging system in the James Webb telescope, the fact that the world wide web exists and now a new age of artificial intelligence is upon us - all great things.

In a previous life I was the Software Safety Officer on a project building the ground tracking and safety system for the Ariane 5 launcher - five hundred tonnes of high explosive travelling many times faster than the speed of sound. I wonder how I would have dealt with that situation if the team were using vibe coding and AI codebots. It was stressful enough dealing with random humans - but an AI? The only handbook we have is 2001 and HAL, and I seem to remember that did not go well. But good luck to you all - I'm sure you will work it out.