Why Software Engineers should remember Tacoma Bridge Collapse
Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed 4 months after it was thrown open to the public around July 1940. Root cause of the collapse was the Architects of the bridge had never considered the extent to which the wind could create a side to side harmonic ripple. While the bridge was under construction , workers had observed the vertical movement of the deck under windy conditions and nick named the bridge as the Galloping Gertie. On the fatal morning of Nov 7th 1940, bridge could not sustain winds of 42 mph and collapsed.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse was attributed to aero-elastic flutter and since it’s collapse it is often presented as a case study for undergrad courses in Science and Civil Engineering .
For Computer Science under graduate, there is hardly any focus on engineering aspects of Software Development, learning from past failures is a far fetched expectation. I read about Tacoma Narrow Bridge in context of software development in Code Complete , an amazing book about Software Development.
When you do not pay enough attention to non functional requirements in any software development project, you are creating a software version of 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge. So next time you are in a Story grooming/Architecture/Design meeting remember ‘Tacoma Bridge collapse’ and do not leave the meeting unless you have captured the non functional requirements and figured out how your architecture and design will address that requirement.
Just like the construction workers of Tacoma Narrows, most Developers and Testers do see their code swinging like Tacoma Bridge during coding/testing phase. So next time this happens, do not ignore it. Go the extra mile, fix it before you throw open your software to your users.