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In mission critical software, software engineering feels like engineering. A friend of mine that has a company focused in this niche jokes around that his IDE i

by haolez 6y ago

In mission critical software, software engineering feels like engineering. A friend of mine that has a company focused in this niche jokes around that his IDE is Microsoft Word :)

InitialLastName 6y ago
This explains why half the ex-electrical engineering majors I know are mission-critical software developers.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  A lot of companies in that domain also prefer hiring them over CS people, it's a culture thing. Many of them hired EEs in the 70s/80s (and earlier) who became managers. At the time it made more sense (fewer CS folks) but it established a culture of preferring engineers to computer scientists/programmers/(these days)software engineers. I even left a job because they straight up told me no non-EE would ever become a lead (over a 99% software activity). I appreciated their honesty and found the exit. The usual justification for perpetuating it has to do with the 1% of the job that touches hardware, but IME it's usually either truly specialized and most of the EEs couldn't do it either, or trivial (following directions from the electrical engineering team that actually designed the hardware).
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    I think there's value in hiring people who have been trained in a standardized process that prioritizes chains of responsibility, detailed analysis and reliability over velocity, flexibility and bug-tolerance. Plus, these days, the usual electrical engineering curriculum is ~50% programming, which is more than can be said for some CS curricula (which aren't standardized the way ABET does for EE).
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      That's a very odd assessment, but that's, like, totally your opinion, man. > I think there's value in hiring people who have been trained in a standardized process that prioritizes chains of responsibility, detailed analysis and reliability over (velocity, flexibility and bug-tolerance.* You write this as if that's what CS people are taught (to make crappy systems and crappy code), which may be a common feature of many programmers, it is not the thing they're taught to do in school. At least not if they halfway paid attention.
dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
I think I know what you mean, but could you break that down for me just in case? And what is mission critical? Aerospace control software? Wouldn’t it be nice if all software was “mission critical”? Not all houses are skyscrapers, but all houses are designed and built to industry acceptable specs and if those specs are wrongly designed or executed incorrectly there are consequences, and rightly so I think.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  Aero space would be considered safety critical, which implies even higher levels of rigor (and regulation). Mission critical can apply to any setting where a lot of money or other resources are at stake wrt. the software functioning correctly.
  - haolez 6y ago
    This friend bitches around a lot about "soft real-time is not hard real-time! It makes a huge difference!" :D
- haolez 6y ago
  The incentives are different. Time to market and exponential growth are not the main concerns. You have financial incentives, enforced by your contract, to deliver documentation and to test every delivery under rigorous QA. I think this friend is working on satellite software and also (counter intuitively for me) accounting software with anti-fraud semantics.
- axguscbklp 6y ago
  I think that in general, the market does not want to pay for that.
- theamk 6y ago
  > Wouldn’t it be nice if all software was “mission critical” Nope. There are times for nice, strong houses; and there are times for chicken coops made out of duct tape, rusty steel wire and bent nails. As long as they keep chickens in, it is all fine. It is up to management to decide what kind of structure are they going to build. That said, there are disturbingly many cases when people don't pay attention to security, and then there are personal data leaks. The handling of personal data should be regulated, verified, and there should be severe consequences for leaks caused by negligence. As for the rest -- let people do whatever they want. No backups? sure. 'SELECT *' on index.php? you are paying for the servers, go ahead.

by haolez 6y ago

In mission critical software, software engineering feels like engineering. A friend of mine that has a company focused in this niche jokes around that his IDE is Microsoft Word :)

InitialLastName 6y ago

This explains why half the ex-electrical engineering majors I know are mission-critical software developers.

Jtsummers 6y ago
A lot of companies in that domain also prefer hiring them over CS people, it's a culture thing. Many of them hired EEs in the 70s/80s (and earlier) who became managers. At the time it made more sense (fewer CS folks) but it established a culture of preferring engineers to computer scientists/programmers/(these days)software engineers. I even left a job because they straight up told me no non-EE would ever become a lead (over a 99% software activity). I appreciated their honesty and found the exit. The usual justification for perpetuating it has to do with the 1% of the job that touches hardware, but IME it's usually either truly specialized and most of the EEs couldn't do it either, or trivial (following directions from the electrical engineering team that actually designed the hardware).
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  I think there's value in hiring people who have been trained in a standardized process that prioritizes chains of responsibility, detailed analysis and reliability over velocity, flexibility and bug-tolerance. Plus, these days, the usual electrical engineering curriculum is ~50% programming, which is more than can be said for some CS curricula (which aren't standardized the way ABET does for EE).
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    That's a very odd assessment, but that's, like, totally your opinion, man. > I think there's value in hiring people who have been trained in a standardized process that prioritizes chains of responsibility, detailed analysis and reliability over (velocity, flexibility and bug-tolerance.* You write this as if that's what CS people are taught (to make crappy systems and crappy code), which may be a common feature of many programmers, it is not the thing they're taught to do in school. At least not if they halfway paid attention.

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago

I think I know what you mean, but could you break that down for me just in case? And what is mission critical? Aerospace control software? Wouldn’t it be nice if all software was “mission critical”? Not all houses are skyscrapers, but all houses are designed and built to industry acceptable specs and if those specs are wrongly designed or executed incorrectly there are consequences, and rightly so I think.

zozbot234 6y ago
Aero space would be considered safety critical, which implies even higher levels of rigor (and regulation). Mission critical can apply to any setting where a lot of money or other resources are at stake wrt. the software functioning correctly.
- haolez 6y ago
  This friend bitches around a lot about "soft real-time is not hard real-time! It makes a huge difference!" :D
haolez 6y ago
The incentives are different. Time to market and exponential growth are not the main concerns. You have financial incentives, enforced by your contract, to deliver documentation and to test every delivery under rigorous QA. I think this friend is working on satellite software and also (counter intuitively for me) accounting software with anti-fraud semantics.
axguscbklp 6y ago
I think that in general, the market does not want to pay for that.
theamk 6y ago
> Wouldn’t it be nice if all software was “mission critical” Nope. There are times for nice, strong houses; and there are times for chicken coops made out of duct tape, rusty steel wire and bent nails. As long as they keep chickens in, it is all fine. It is up to management to decide what kind of structure are they going to build. That said, there are disturbingly many cases when people don't pay attention to security, and then there are personal data leaks. The handling of personal data should be regulated, verified, and there should be severe consequences for leaks caused by negligence. As for the rest -- let people do whatever they want. No backups? sure. 'SELECT *' on index.php? you are paying for the servers, go ahead.