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In her opening keynote at GoRuCo 2018, titled "The Good Bad Bug: Fail Your Way to Better Code," Jessica Rudder emphasizes the importance of embracing failure as a critical component of learning and improving in programming. Drawing on her experience at GitHub, Rudder begins her talk by highlighting the connection between aviation and programming, noting that both fields can benefit from a culture that analyzes failures rather than placing blame. She articulates several key points throughout her talk:

- **Definition of Failure**: Rudder explores how failure is often thought of as the absence of success; however, she emphasizes that failure should be viewed as a deviation from expected results, providing valuable insights into what went wrong.

- **Cultural Approach to Failure**: She contrasts how the aviation industry treats failure—systematically documenting and investigating every incident to extract lessons—with more blame-oriented perspectives often found in programming and other industries.

- **Examples from Video Game Development**: Rudder shares notable examples from the world of video games, such as the evolution of *Space Invaders* and the development of *Grand Theft Auto*, where developers embraced unintended outcomes from failures to innovate and improve the gaming experience. In one instance, rather than fix a programming issue that made police too aggressive in a racing game, developers shifted their focus to making the evasion of police the central gameplay mechanic.

- **Systematic Learning from Failure**: To foster a learning environment, Rudder outlines three crucial steps:
  - Avoid placing blame
  - Document everything thoroughly
  - Analyze gathered data for patterns

- **Creating a Supportive Environment**: She highlights the necessity of creating an atmosphere where it’s safe to fail, especially for marginalized groups within the tech community. This leads to stronger teams and better outcomes.

Rudder concludes her talk by urging the tech industry to focus on promoting a culture where mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth rather than as failures to be ashamed of. Her personal anecdotes, statistics, and well-known case studies illustrate how embracing "good bad bugs" can lead to groundbreaking innovations and ultimately better coding practices. She encourages attendees to shift their mindset so that failure can lead to learning and improvement, thus nurturing the next generation of developers.

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