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More it is a mindset that I favor. Which is that tools are not an excuse for not thinking.

I was doing a machining class where the instructor related stories that the machines with the most safeguards had the most accidents, he related it to people being less careful around them. There is a lot of research around accidents at NIH and elsewhere but I've not seen a really definitive study that took up the question of risk versus user awareness.

Having a process where you always run unit tests or lint Etc has been more reliable for me in terms of avoiding programming bugs escaping into production.




The instructor's observation seems to be an example of risk compensation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation


There was an interesting article arguing that motorcycle helmets make motor cycling more dangerous. Sure, if you have an accident, a helmet is a win. But risk compensation indicates you might be less likely to have an accident when not wearing a helmet.


Excellent! Thanks for putting a name to it.




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