Thurs Feb 18 Penn State Great Valley - "How Good is Good Enough" for software

How Good is Good Enough?
The Ethical Significance of Your Answer
Presenter: Keith W. Miller, Ph.D.


Thursday, February 18 - 5:00 p.m.
Penn State Great Valley, Main Building, Room 130
Route 202 and Route 29, Malvern PA


The seemingly straightforward question, "How good is good enough?" turns out to be surprisingly challenging to answer for software engineers.

This talk will explore how that challenge is met in software engineering, then focus on the ethical significance of different answers. Some answers emphasize technical measures, drawing on work in statistics, computer science, and engineering, while another approach emphasizes economics and marketing.

Another answer is primarily ethical, requiring examination of the interplay of human values and the quantitative measures emphasized by other approaches. Although this does not make the "how good" decision easy, it does clarify some important dimensions of the issue that other approaches do not engage.


Dr. Miller's research includes software testing and computer ethics. He is the author or co-author of over 300 articles and presentations. His recent work is interdisciplinary, combining computer science and philosophy to examine the ethics of computing. Dr. Miller is the editor of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, and an associate editor of IEEE's IT Pro Magazine, as well as being the Schewe Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois, Springfield

This presentation is free and open to faculty, staff, students, and the community.
To RSVP, please contact Amanda at
mailto:ach14@psu.edu or 610-725-5382.