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Exactly. That's why we as developers need to instrument our systems so that they are traceable and debuggable, track changes and so on.
The issue with the Post Office was that their management, (and / or Fujitsu's) refused to acknowledge that their software was fallible, and therefore - even if it existed - failed to use the diagnostics to find out what had gone wrong. The only "culprit" left, therefore, were the users - the sub-postmasters. To what extent that refusal to accept that Horizon might have bugs was down to naivety, ignorance or stupidity, and to what extent it was deliberate, will hopefully come to light in the not-too-distant future.
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DerekT-P wrote: refused to acknowledge that their software was fallible,
Very, very rare in my experience that organizations admit to failure.
Individual humans are more likely to admit to failure but are very resistant to it even so.
The likelihood of either goes down as complexity goes up.
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Thankfully, yes very rare. That's part of what makes this scandal so shocking.
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Even if they had kept manual records, I suspect the Post Office staff sent round to interview them would have ignored any evidence, or used it to imply the manual records were to cover up the fraud.
These interviewers were bullies, using scare tactics beyond anything our esteemed police forces would use.
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Perhaps I have viewed too many movies and TV series legal dramas but it seems to me the defense attorneys should have investigated the Horizon code.
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Solicitors and barristers (== the UK types of lawyers) know no more about computers than software people know about the practice of law. Also, if the postmasters were honest, they certainly didn't have the kind of money required to hire top tier legal defence, including investigators, computer experts, etc.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Greetings and Kind Regards
I looked up "solicitor" and "barrister" on WikiPedia. I never understood the difference between the two. I still do not. A near as I can discern from the article one needs a solicitor a barrister a chartered legal executive perhaps even a solicitor advocate and finally an actual lawyer in order to beat a parking ticket in Jolly Ol' England. The place of my birth. I still recall as a young child seeing my twin brother feed the pigeons in what I presume was Trafalgar Square. I have even an earlier memory than this but if I were to disclose it I would be pilloried as hallucinating as it can not be any earlier while in this world.
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It wouldn't have helped. The evidence is that the Post Office ad possibly Fujitsu lied to cover themselves. They also prevented an IT company from carrying out forensic work on behalf of the victims.
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Wow - and "only" £3820! 
Think I'll stick with the free Merlin Bird ID app and a cheap (or should that be "cheep"?) telephoto phone lens for now.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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They should invent some kind of AI-spectacles which can directly pinpoint/highlight the buggy piece of code, while debugging. Should have the ability to read the coder's mind, to understand expected behaviour.
Or, does this already exist?
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Amarnath S wrote: Or, does this already exist?
@OriginalGriff has a cat that's quite adept on the keyboard.
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Amarnath S wrote: Should have the ability to read the coder's mind, to understand expected behaviour.
To read shouldn't be that difficult. To understand it... that's another thing  
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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On second thoughts, such a device would be harmful to coder's careers. A single coder wearing this AI-spectacles could potentially displace many coding jobs.
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I'd love to have a pair of these, but not at $4,800 US.
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Geez, ok, that's cool but it seems like it takes the fun out of doing the identification oneself. In 5-10 years, nobody will be able to do anything without AI. And yeah, I mean anything. 
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Actually that was my thought also. Not my thing but from what I have seen identification is only a small part of what people enjoy about it.
Not to mention that at least some people already have expensive equipment used just to see the birds from a distance, so how do these match that quality?
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jschell wrote: identification is only a small part of what people enjoy about it.
The identification can be a big part of it if the birder has a list of species he wants to see in his lifetime. But that's only when spotting birds that you don't usually see everyday.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Wordle 937 2/6*
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Wordle 937 2/6
⬛⬛🟨🟨🟨
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Wordle 937 4/6
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
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Wordle 937 2/6
⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩
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Identical!
Wordle 937 2/6*
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THe second one was a very lucky guess - a dozen or so possibles for my starter.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Wordle 937 3/6
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