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One of my friends works at the STSCI on various visualization and simulation tools (all web-based, written in a modern stack!) for planning missions for this th
by cmrx64 10y ago
One of my friends works at the STSCI on various visualization and simulation tools (all web-based, written in a modern stack!) for planning missions for this thing. It's a really really neat project.
The telescope itself is "scriptable" using a (truly ancient) version of JS via a really old implementation that I've seen referenced but can't find right now. There's a lot of open information about the JWST, but it's not widely reported on. Definitely worth checking out if you're interested in space, technology, and the systems we actually deploy into the void!
Some papers: http://www.stsci.edu/~idash/pub/dashevsky0607rcsgso.pdf http://www.stsci.edu/~idash/pub/dashevsky0607rcsgso.pdf
http://arc-test.aiaa.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2514/6.2006-5747 http://arc-test.aiaa.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2514/6.2006-5747
- pmoriarty 10y agoWhy Javascript?
- photogrammetry 10y agoSo the Russians can hack it to self-destruct, obviously.
- snerbles 10y agoNot that it answers your question, but JS dialects can be found in other strange embedded places such as Cognex's DataMan industrial barcode readers.
- lisper 10y agoProbably because Common Lisp has a bad rap at NASA. http://www.flownet.com/ron/jpl-lisp.html http://www.flownet.com/ron/jpl-lisp.html
- iammiles 10y agoThanks for posting this interesting read.
- Something1234 10y agoSo why was lisp bad other than some bureaucrat saying it's bad.
- lisper 10y agoLisp isn't bad. Technically it was an unqualified success (and still is). It died at NASA simply because of politics.
- digler999 10y agoprobably so astronomers can easily focus on their work - pointing the 'scope at stuff - and not worry about writing elegant/concise/reusable/succinct/$(feelgood adjective) code. I could understand it being used that way if it were for a limited scope (no pun intended) of operations, such as direction, focus, camera/sensor settings, etc. I'm sure they're not using JS to control thrusters or calculate trajectories.
- lelandbatey 10y agoThere are plenty of languages that provide that same benefit of straightforwardness while also lacking warts and being even easier to embed; for example Lua, which was designed with express purpose of simplicity and ease of embedding. The real answer is probably that in 2003 JS looked more interesting/good enough that it was chosen in this case.
- semaphoreP 10y agoActually, us astronomers will never have to script anything with JS. They'll give us a GUI which will limit what we can do to strictly valid commands: e.g. point the telescope at this position in the sky and observe using this instrument for this much time.
- Analemma_ 10y agoOh lord, JavaScript goes to space. You thought losing the MCO because of Imperial units was embarrassing? Just wait until this $9 billion telescope explodes because [] == ![] or something. (This was supposed to be humorous, just making sure)
- Pxtl 10y agoOr just can't do a calculation right because single precision floats lack the granularity for it.
- bzbarsky 10y agoJavasScript uses double precision floats, unless you're working with float32 typed arrays.
- gfody 10y agoSeriously though, considering how deeply every other aspect of this project was deliberated (presumably, given the cost involved) - how they could possibly end up going with Javascript is bizarre. You'd think there would be a preference for arbitrary precision and against undefined behavior.
- writeslowly 10y agoI can't find the evaluation paper they cited in the second linked paper, but it looks like it's using Javascript because they wanted a COTS script engine (as opposed to running compiled code) that was compatible with VxWorks, and the particular Javascript engine they selected (ScriptEase) was presumably the best option they found back in 2003. I'm not really sure what all options they would have had in 2003 though.
- jdale27 10y agoThey should have hired Erann Gat to do it in Lisp.
- abritinthebay 10y ago
- khazhou 10y agoIn fact, one of the major reasons for the $4B+ budget overage was the rewrite from plain Javascript to Backbone in 2012, again to Angular in 2014, and to React last year.