4 ms·

yes, but also with 100+ years of engineering, for far fewer companies/nations, and with trillions (more?) thrown at the discipline. Software engineering is, wh

by hoka 6y ago

yes, but also with 100+ years of engineering, for far fewer companies/nations, and with trillions (more?) thrown at the discipline. Software engineering is, what, 50 years old, tops?

WalterBright 6y ago
> Software engineering is, what, 50 years old, tops? I've been working in this industry for nearly 45 years now. I still see endemic vulnerability to single points of failure, and little recognition of that. Heck, the SolarWinds hack was first discovered by a security company because it had compromised their own internal systems and gone undetected for some time.
Ragnarork 6y ago
Given that software engineering is part of aerospace engineering, some of it is part of that engineering success. But a key aspect of this is that one does not develop software for airplanes the same way and with the same constraints/goals as other areas of software engineering. If anything, aerospace engineering is a prime example of how software can be made more reliable by tolerating failures instead of relying on it not to fail, to come back to GP's point about failure-tolerant designs.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > aerospace engineering is a prime example of how software can be made more reliable by tolerating failures instead of relying on it not to fail Exactly. I often have a hard time getting this point across, glad I succeeded.
drtillberg 6y ago
Unfortunately, sophisticated threat actors are still very hard to defend against in aviation like in software.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  In my day at Boeing, nobody considered that the pilot might be a bad actor. Unfortunately, that was a mistake. It turns out pilots can be bad, and now there are procedures for that.
  - sofixa 6y ago
    Funny that Boeing are capable of considering that, but not a single sensor failing and how that might impact a system designed to hide the actual aerodynamics of the plane. Boeing really aren't a good example for anything besides negligence and how to game regulators.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      I'm not going to make any excuses for MCAS's reliance on a single sensor.

by hoka 6y ago

yes, but also with 100+ years of engineering, for far fewer companies/nations, and with trillions (more?) thrown at the discipline. Software engineering is, what, 50 years old, tops?

WalterBright 6y ago

> Software engineering is, what, 50 years old, tops? I've been working in this industry for nearly 45 years now. I still see endemic vulnerability to single points of failure, and little recognition of that. Heck, the SolarWinds hack was first discovered by a security company because it had compromised their own internal systems and gone undetected for some time.

Ragnarork 6y ago

Given that software engineering is part of aerospace engineering, some of it is part of that engineering success. But a key aspect of this is that one does not develop software for airplanes the same way and with the same constraints/goals as other areas of software engineering. If anything, aerospace engineering is a prime example of how software can be made more reliable by tolerating failures instead of relying on it not to fail, to come back to GP's point about failure-tolerant designs.

WalterBright 6y ago
> aerospace engineering is a prime example of how software can be made more reliable by tolerating failures instead of relying on it not to fail Exactly. I often have a hard time getting this point across, glad I succeeded.

drtillberg 6y ago

Unfortunately, sophisticated threat actors are still very hard to defend against in aviation like in software.

WalterBright 6y ago
In my day at Boeing, nobody considered that the pilot might be a bad actor. Unfortunately, that was a mistake. It turns out pilots can be bad, and now there are procedures for that.
- sofixa 6y ago
  Funny that Boeing are capable of considering that, but not a single sensor failing and how that might impact a system designed to hide the actual aerodynamics of the plane. Boeing really aren't a good example for anything besides negligence and how to game regulators.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    I'm not going to make any excuses for MCAS's reliance on a single sensor.