alt Hacker NewsThere already are areas where such standards exist, eg safety critical applications in aviation. Arguably the defect rate there _is_ lower, but I still think that this method for achieving this is quite inefficient. And I think that writing aviation software that doesn’t crash is a lot easier to define a process for than for writing software that is difficult to hack.
The missing piece is the requirement for a certified Professional Engineer to sign off on the system. That decouples the incentives from the corporate objectives, and makes it personal. We need that kind of professional accountability in software, otherwise it'll continue to be bad.