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My two cents: - I'm asking myself why there's no reference to Autosar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUTOSAR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUTOSAR) which is not

My two cents: - I'm asking myself why there's no reference to Autosar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUTOSAR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUTOSAR) which is not an operating system (whatever this means in this context), but yelds a sort of a standard architecture in the car and among third parties. It's a real mess, but it works in this sense. - rumors exist about VW and other manufacturers pushing for using ADA (more specifically Spark), anyone aware of this?

molteanu 7y ago
Yes, it is a mess. At over 15.000 pages, AUTOSAR specifies not general utilities, libraries, battle tested data structures used in the automotive field or whatnot, but actual automotive components that in theory can be developed independently and combined to build the whole car. XML being the medium of choice for this standardization doesn't help either. You're left with tools upon tools that modify XML files and generate C code based on those files and very little opportunity to actually look/modify those C files by hand, even in trivial circumstances. In short, the AUTOSAR idea, from what I've experienced, is to hire an army of mouse-clickers that can use shiny tools to assemble and configure every aspect of the car. They would not learn C or any programming, but learn the actual standard and know what you need to click or check in each and every instance. The tools would then take care of bringing in the code and generate the header configuration files for you. Anyway, not mentioning AUTOSAR might be a sign that its days are numbered, perhaps?
- jacobush 7y ago
  Then, from my experience, when the mouse-clickers are done, you employ an army of C-coders to work around and/or abuse the (expensive) AUTOSAR components until the system (somewhat) does what you wanted it to. In my case it was AUTOSAR in name only. Our higher bosses thought we were running AUTOSAR, but the lower you went, the understanding was firmer and firmer that what we actually ran was custom software. Oh, the days numbered part - nah, I don't think so. AUTOSAR is for very low level stuff, I think unholy combinations will live on for a long time. AFAIK all the component (like hardware, Bosch for instance) vendors only provide AUTOSAR components for integration. Not sure, it was a few years ago I was in the loop.
- stefanoco 7y ago
  > Anyway, not mentioning AUTOSAR might be a sign that its days are numbered, perhaps? I'd like but it doesn't seem so. We're having pending requests for working on AUTOSAR-based software, and a few are for brand new car models. Different opinion regarding EV: here I'm not aware of any single AUTOSAR based element but I may be wrong.
TheRealDunkirk 7y ago
I immediately searched about this connection, and saw a PDF announcement from 2017 where AutoSAR announced that VW was going to start using their latest, greatest version. I can only assume now that either VW found that it just wasn't up to the task of future proofing the platform, or they're trying to negotiate better deals in the AutoSAR space. (I know very little about this market.) What's truly scary to me is that VW says they'll need 5-10 THOUSAND people working on this. Given that they're starting with Linux/Android, and have all the mature tooling in that space, why should it take that many people to adapt it to a car? That seems excessive.

molteanu 7y ago

Yes, it is a mess. At over 15.000 pages, AUTOSAR specifies not general utilities, libraries, battle tested data structures used in the automotive field or whatnot, but actual automotive components that in theory can be developed independently and combined to build the whole car. XML being the medium of choice for this standardization doesn't help either. You're left with tools upon tools that modify XML files and generate C code based on those files and very little opportunity to actually look/modify those C files by hand, even in trivial circumstances. In short, the AUTOSAR idea, from what I've experienced, is to hire an army of mouse-clickers that can use shiny tools to assemble and configure every aspect of the car. They would not learn C or any programming, but learn the actual standard and know what you need to click or check in each and every instance. The tools would then take care of bringing in the code and generate the header configuration files for you. Anyway, not mentioning AUTOSAR might be a sign that its days are numbered, perhaps?

jacobush 7y ago
Then, from my experience, when the mouse-clickers are done, you employ an army of C-coders to work around and/or abuse the (expensive) AUTOSAR components until the system (somewhat) does what you wanted it to. In my case it was AUTOSAR in name only. Our higher bosses thought we were running AUTOSAR, but the lower you went, the understanding was firmer and firmer that what we actually ran was custom software. Oh, the days numbered part - nah, I don't think so. AUTOSAR is for very low level stuff, I think unholy combinations will live on for a long time. AFAIK all the component (like hardware, Bosch for instance) vendors only provide AUTOSAR components for integration. Not sure, it was a few years ago I was in the loop.
stefanoco 7y ago
> Anyway, not mentioning AUTOSAR might be a sign that its days are numbered, perhaps? I'd like but it doesn't seem so. We're having pending requests for working on AUTOSAR-based software, and a few are for brand new car models. Different opinion regarding EV: here I'm not aware of any single AUTOSAR based element but I may be wrong.

TheRealDunkirk 7y ago

I immediately searched about this connection, and saw a PDF announcement from 2017 where AutoSAR announced that VW was going to start using their latest, greatest version. I can only assume now that either VW found that it just wasn't up to the task of future proofing the platform, or they're trying to negotiate better deals in the AutoSAR space. (I know very little about this market.) What's truly scary to me is that VW says they'll need 5-10 THOUSAND people working on this. Given that they're starting with Linux/Android, and have all the mature tooling in that space, why should it take that many people to adapt it to a car? That seems excessive.