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I was a developer at a large contracter doing work for the Navy in the 1970s. Compared to today, there was almost zero code review, but an insane amount of test

by dn3500 5y ago

I was a developer at a large contracter doing work for the Navy in the 1970s. Compared to today, there was almost zero code review, but an insane amount of testing, from the lowest module level to the highest integration level, both against the requirements and in simulation. We did not subcontract software. I often wished I could talk to the warfighter who was going to use my stuff but it never happened. Worse I never got any feedback on whether my stuff was even used. We did have quite a few ex-Navy people in our dev group and that did help.

wolverine876 5y ago
How efficient was that? How fast could you develop solutions?
- virtue3 5y ago
  https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/navy-reverting-ddgs-back-to-physical-throttles-after-fleet-rejects-touchscreen-controls https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/navy-reverting-ddgs-back-to... Fucking bad from what I've read. It's a really bad problem still and the USN needs to correct it by having a tighter integration with the HW/SW people and the actual soldiers/sailors.
- dkdk8283 5y ago
  Hopefully very slowly, you do not want fast development. You’re developing a safety critical system and should prioritize stability over features.
- dn3500 5y ago
  In a way it was awful. It was sort of like anti-agile. There was absolutely no dialog between the devs and the customer. If the requirements said the throttle had to be on the touchscreen (to use an example from another comment), that's what we did, even if we strongly suspected this was a really bad idea. I was too far down the food chain to know where these requirements came from, it was like they were handed down to Moses on stone tablets. How fast could we develop? In addition to the requirements, we were also handed a schedule (a PERT chart, if anyone still knows what that is). It was laughably padded. Padded so much that it would have been impossible to fall behind schedule. I almost always finished my work for the day before lunch. Sometimes I would then go for a three martini lunch with the sales guys, or spend the afternoon in the library or flying the F-14 simulator. Sometimes I would spend the afternoon working on tools to make debugging easier. It was a fun job, but ultimately unsatisfying and I left after two years.

by dn3500 5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

How efficient was that? How fast could you develop solutions?

virtue3 5y ago
https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/navy-reverting-ddgs-back-to-physical-throttles-after-fleet-rejects-touchscreen-controls https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/navy-reverting-ddgs-back-to... Fucking bad from what I've read. It's a really bad problem still and the USN needs to correct it by having a tighter integration with the HW/SW people and the actual soldiers/sailors.
dkdk8283 5y ago
Hopefully very slowly, you do not want fast development. You’re developing a safety critical system and should prioritize stability over features.
dn3500 5y ago
In a way it was awful. It was sort of like anti-agile. There was absolutely no dialog between the devs and the customer. If the requirements said the throttle had to be on the touchscreen (to use an example from another comment), that's what we did, even if we strongly suspected this was a really bad idea. I was too far down the food chain to know where these requirements came from, it was like they were handed down to Moses on stone tablets. How fast could we develop? In addition to the requirements, we were also handed a schedule (a PERT chart, if anyone still knows what that is). It was laughably padded. Padded so much that it would have been impossible to fall behind schedule. I almost always finished my work for the day before lunch. Sometimes I would then go for a three martini lunch with the sales guys, or spend the afternoon in the library or flying the F-14 simulator. Sometimes I would spend the afternoon working on tools to make debugging easier. It was a fun job, but ultimately unsatisfying and I left after two years.