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It has been mentioned in the article that MCAS was never outsourced. Also it’s unfair to blame the software engineers who are building it to specification. It w

It has been mentioned in the article that MCAS was never outsourced. Also it’s unfair to blame the software engineers who are building it to specification. It would be fantastical to assume that Boeing management( the same one ploughing through engineering with bean counting) would give a rats crap about a low level engineer raising a concern.

_ph_ 7y ago
It has been mentioned in the article that MCAS was never outsourced. Where did the article say that? To me it explicitly claims it was outsourced: the McDonnell Douglas influenced Boeing new one tried to patch the problem with software. And it was bad software, written by to engineers paid $9/dollar an hour. And I am not blaming the software engineers for building it to the specification. In contrary, I clearly stated, that just building it to specification isn't enough for such critical software. Such software needs to be developed in teams where enough team members are senior enough to properly raise concerns where appropriate.
- glitchdout 7y ago
  Nowhere in the [original reporting][1] does it say that MCAS was outsourced. This article (The Coming Boeing Bailout?) wrongly asserts that MCAS was outsourced. There's no corroboration for that. Mind you, I'm not on Boeing's side. I'm just clarifying what's been reported so far. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-...
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    I had understood the part of the article, which I quoted as that MCAS was outsourced. If it wasn't then the article is to blame and my point is moot.
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-... >In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max. >The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”
    - glitchdout 7y ago
      Nowhere in that quote does it say that: 1. HCL wrote the code for MCAS; or 2. HCL wrote all the code of the Max. But again, I'm not defending Boeing. I think they made some (deadly) mistakes. But so far there's no proof that the MCAS software was outsourced.
puzzledobserver 7y ago
Not sure why this comment is being downvoted. First, none of the software in question was outsourced to the company. Second, the Bloomberg article does not describe the problems Boeing had with the software engineers from HCL, beyond a cryptic, "it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly." Was it a genuine misunderstanding of ambiguous language? Was it because the programmers did not have a background in the aerospace problem domain? Or was it because the engineers had a poor grasp of the vocabulary? It seems improper to assume the third situation in the absence of any additional evidence. Finally, I am not sure what part of "software being outsourced" is considered outrageous. Is there evidence that a software engineer employed by Boeing, rather than by company XYZ, is less likely to produce faulty code? Or is more likely to understand the complex downstream effects of their actions and the equally complex upstream design decisions which informed them? Also, countries don't write code. Companies don't write code. People do. That "India doesn't have a deep background in aerospace" doesn't mean much at the level of individual engineers. I am skeptical that the most highly skilled American programmer has a deep background in aerospace either. Sorry about the rant: something about the Blookmberg article came across as xenophobic innuendo.
- senderista 7y ago
  MSFT had a similar experience with HCL (I think it was them, one of the large Indian outsourcing firms in any case) when I was working on Vista. All fixes for bugs identified by static analyzers (PREfix/PREfast) were outsourced to contract programmers who had zero familiarity with the Windows source code. The “fixes” they sent back almost invariably introduced new bugs, and the whole back-and-forth process took much more time and effort (and presumably money) than just having the code owners fix the bugs in the first place.

_ph_ 7y ago

It has been mentioned in the article that MCAS was never outsourced. Where did the article say that? To me it explicitly claims it was outsourced: the McDonnell Douglas influenced Boeing new one tried to patch the problem with software. And it was bad software, written by to engineers paid $9/dollar an hour. And I am not blaming the software engineers for building it to the specification. In contrary, I clearly stated, that just building it to specification isn't enough for such critical software. Such software needs to be developed in teams where enough team members are senior enough to properly raise concerns where appropriate.

glitchdout 7y ago
Nowhere in the [original reporting][1] does it say that MCAS was outsourced. This article (The Coming Boeing Bailout?) wrongly asserts that MCAS was outsourced. There's no corroboration for that. Mind you, I'm not on Boeing's side. I'm just clarifying what's been reported so far. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-...
- _ph_ 7y ago
  I had understood the part of the article, which I quoted as that MCAS was outsourced. If it wasn't then the article is to blame and my point is moot.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-... >In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max. >The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”
  - glitchdout 7y ago
    Nowhere in that quote does it say that: 1. HCL wrote the code for MCAS; or 2. HCL wrote all the code of the Max. But again, I'm not defending Boeing. I think they made some (deadly) mistakes. But so far there's no proof that the MCAS software was outsourced.

puzzledobserver 7y ago

Not sure why this comment is being downvoted. First, none of the software in question was outsourced to the company. Second, the Bloomberg article does not describe the problems Boeing had with the software engineers from HCL, beyond a cryptic, "it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly." Was it a genuine misunderstanding of ambiguous language? Was it because the programmers did not have a background in the aerospace problem domain? Or was it because the engineers had a poor grasp of the vocabulary? It seems improper to assume the third situation in the absence of any additional evidence. Finally, I am not sure what part of "software being outsourced" is considered outrageous. Is there evidence that a software engineer employed by Boeing, rather than by company XYZ, is less likely to produce faulty code? Or is more likely to understand the complex downstream effects of their actions and the equally complex upstream design decisions which informed them? Also, countries don't write code. Companies don't write code. People do. That "India doesn't have a deep background in aerospace" doesn't mean much at the level of individual engineers. I am skeptical that the most highly skilled American programmer has a deep background in aerospace either. Sorry about the rant: something about the Blookmberg article came across as xenophobic innuendo.

senderista 7y ago
MSFT had a similar experience with HCL (I think it was them, one of the large Indian outsourcing firms in any case) when I was working on Vista. All fixes for bugs identified by static analyzers (PREfix/PREfast) were outsourced to contract programmers who had zero familiarity with the Windows source code. The “fixes” they sent back almost invariably introduced new bugs, and the whole back-and-forth process took much more time and effort (and presumably money) than just having the code owners fix the bugs in the first place.