7 ms·

There was a point in the history of aviation where anyone who could fly a plane was also capable of constructing and designing one. I wonder if there were simil

There was a point in the history of aviation where anyone who could fly a plane was also capable of constructing and designing one. I wonder if there were similar concerns at that time about a future where someone could be in a cockpit of a plane without truly understanding how the machine works from first principles? Today that type of concern would seem absurd, and we've gotten used to the idea that flying a plane and building it are separate skillsets and jobs. After all, we are comfortable with aviation engineers designing the aircraft without knowing how to mine the bauxite, smelt it to aluminium, and machine it into aircraft parts. As comforting as it is to have an overview of how to trace a complete path from logic gate to web request, it isn't necessary. The decrease in the number of engineers with that overview isn't a cause for alarm, or a problem to be solved. It is just a sign that "tech" has matured, and it is stratifying into a set of interlocking disciplines. The same happened with every other subject in human history, and we've been just fine...

metalrain 3y ago
Yes, I cannot imagine how anyone could know all the details that go into each step. It's good to have people that do know how computers operate and how we use them, but specialization is also good thing.
hliyan 3y ago
It would be concerning if pilots, aircraft maintenance technicians and aeronautical engineers shared titles and job descriptions so similar that it was hard to tell them apart.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  Heck, the titles in software are so broad you may as well have the pilot, the tech, and the aerospace engineer all sharing the same title along with the flight attendant.
stakhanov 3y ago
The problem is that it takes a really long time until technology is so good and so reliable that you really don't need to understand it to be able to operate it. Take, for instance, the "Yes, let's all go back to coding in assembly!" line -- The thing is: For a really really long time after high-level languages had become mainstream, you really did still have to know assembly to be a programmer, even if you did most of your work in, say, C, or Pascal. That's because compilers for high-level languages and their debugging tools were initially a "leaky" abstraction. When your programme failed, you had to know assembly to figure out what went wrong and work your way back from that to what you could do in your high-level language to fix the problem. Nowadays, compilers and debugging tools have become so good, that those days are mostly gone, and you really don't need to know assembly any more (for most practical intents and purposes). But the problem we have today: We pile on layer upon layer upon layer of leaky abstraction without ever giving it the time it needs to mature. We're designing for shortening the amount of time a developer spends on getting something done, under the completely misguided assumption that the developer will never leave the "happy path" where everything works as designed. This is neglecting the fact that a developer spends most of their time debugging the situations that don't work as designed. Usually, if you make the "happy path" time more productive with a side-effect of making the "unhappy path" time less productive, that amounts to a net-negative, and that's the big problem.
- austin-cheney 3y ago
  Pilots must still understand how planes work. That’s called aviation. Most software devs have absolutely no idea how their software platform works. Most are overpaid API monkeys.
  - palata 3y ago
    Tell that to the passengers of those 737 MAX flights where the pilots did not know how to disable the failing AoA correction... I wouldn't bet that most pilots know more about how the planes they fly work than software devs know about their computers. For one, most planes today rely heavily on computers. Do they teach electronics in "aviation"?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aerhardt 3y ago
Brilliant analogy and retort to a thesis that is profoundly uninteresting from the start. Thanks.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Anarch157a 3y ago
The Co-pilot of Air France 447 could fit that description. He went to fly highly automated Airbus planes as soon as possible, which means only 250 hours on different types. He didn't had a proper understanding of how stalls worked, since Airbus automation makes it almost impossible to stall the plane, unless something goes horribly wrong and it reverts to manual law, which is what happened in that flight. When the captain returned to the cockpit, he immediately recognized the situation as a deep stall, but then it was too late. Mentour Pilot video on the issue: https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=e5AGHEUxLME&t=1 https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=e5AGHEUxLME&t=1
- antonvs 3y ago
  Sure, but that was an exceptional situation, not some sort of systemic problem. It’s also relatively easy to guard against in future.
  - illiac786 3y ago
    well but it is very difficult to guard against all exceptional situation requiring some basic aviation skills. i think the point made is that you can fix leaks one by one, which takes a very long time, or you can know the abstraction layer below. fixing one leak and assuming there isn’t any other is not the right strategy, is my point.
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    It does looks systemic. Modern planes being design to fly by themselves and new pilots being trained as button pushers with no intuition over the machine they are supposed to control in an emergency. Not that automation is bad but the brain-machine interface is degraded at this point.
athrowaway3z 3y ago
I think there are a couple of things wrong with this comment and analogy. Its not clear the author is demanding 'from first principle'. Second, not everybody in university needs the knowledge of flight or the ability to do it themselves - and there are alternatives to flight. Finally, there is a upfront and physical limits to what can be done to the process of flying. Computing and the framework to think about them are endlessly malleable (and applicable). If I take some of the BS being sold today and transplant them back into the aviation metaphor i can only describe it as a donkey ride being sold as flight. So many customer don't have the knowledge to tell the difference. What resonates with me here (and why i don't like this comparison) is what i believe are the ingredients critical to progress. That is: Only when we've figured out how to make something simple can we build on those foundations and take huge leaps forward. There is a limit to how far or high we go when things get too complex. Similar to the idea of technical debt but at the scale of humanity. Tragically we're very bad at recognizing those eureka moments in history when things became an order more simple because naturally we look a back and assume they're obvious.
grishka 3y ago
A friend of mine got a pilot license several years ago. He was taught a lot about how and why planes work. With a small plane it's generally expected that a single person can maintain it, the same way it works for cars, isn't it? Of course large jet airliners are another story, because they're large, expensive, mind-blowingly complex, and owned by airlines.
m463 3y ago
I think the raspberry pi (and possibly arduino) have made learning the foundational principles more accessible. They make it possible to go from circuit fundamentals up to unix sysadmin fundamentals.
ahazred8ta 3y ago
"One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day this will be an airborne life. But by then men will have forgotten how to fly; they will be passengers on machines whose conductors are carefully promoted to a familiarity with labelled buttons, and in whose minds knowledge of the sky and the wind and the way of weather will be extraneous as passing fiction." -- Beryl Markham, West with the Night, 1942 (first person to solo the Atlantic east to west)
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  Thank you for sharing that here. Your post is why there should be a 'favourite' button for comments as well as posts. Edit: there is one, and I've just clicked it!
ndjfkfbfnrk 3y ago
[dead]
zlg_codes 3y ago
For which narrowly defined version of 'fine'? The only people thinking we're doing fine are those profiting from exploitation.

metalrain 3y ago

Yes, I cannot imagine how anyone could know all the details that go into each step. It's good to have people that do know how computers operate and how we use them, but specialization is also good thing.

hliyan 3y ago

It would be concerning if pilots, aircraft maintenance technicians and aeronautical engineers shared titles and job descriptions so similar that it was hard to tell them apart.

pcthrowaway 3y ago
Heck, the titles in software are so broad you may as well have the pilot, the tech, and the aerospace engineer all sharing the same title along with the flight attendant.

stakhanov 3y ago

The problem is that it takes a really long time until technology is so good and so reliable that you really don't need to understand it to be able to operate it. Take, for instance, the "Yes, let's all go back to coding in assembly!" line -- The thing is: For a really really long time after high-level languages had become mainstream, you really did still have to know assembly to be a programmer, even if you did most of your work in, say, C, or Pascal. That's because compilers for high-level languages and their debugging tools were initially a "leaky" abstraction. When your programme failed, you had to know assembly to figure out what went wrong and work your way back from that to what you could do in your high-level language to fix the problem. Nowadays, compilers and debugging tools have become so good, that those days are mostly gone, and you really don't need to know assembly any more (for most practical intents and purposes). But the problem we have today: We pile on layer upon layer upon layer of leaky abstraction without ever giving it the time it needs to mature. We're designing for shortening the amount of time a developer spends on getting something done, under the completely misguided assumption that the developer will never leave the "happy path" where everything works as designed. This is neglecting the fact that a developer spends most of their time debugging the situations that don't work as designed. Usually, if you make the "happy path" time more productive with a side-effect of making the "unhappy path" time less productive, that amounts to a net-negative, and that's the big problem.

austin-cheney 3y ago
Pilots must still understand how planes work. That’s called aviation. Most software devs have absolutely no idea how their software platform works. Most are overpaid API monkeys.
- palata 3y ago
  Tell that to the passengers of those 737 MAX flights where the pilots did not know how to disable the failing AoA correction... I wouldn't bet that most pilots know more about how the planes they fly work than software devs know about their computers. For one, most planes today rely heavily on computers. Do they teach electronics in "aviation"?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

aerhardt 3y ago

Brilliant analogy and retort to a thesis that is profoundly uninteresting from the start. Thanks.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Anarch157a 3y ago

The Co-pilot of Air France 447 could fit that description. He went to fly highly automated Airbus planes as soon as possible, which means only 250 hours on different types. He didn't had a proper understanding of how stalls worked, since Airbus automation makes it almost impossible to stall the plane, unless something goes horribly wrong and it reverts to manual law, which is what happened in that flight. When the captain returned to the cockpit, he immediately recognized the situation as a deep stall, but then it was too late. Mentour Pilot video on the issue: https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=e5AGHEUxLME&t=1 https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=e5AGHEUxLME&t=1

antonvs 3y ago
Sure, but that was an exceptional situation, not some sort of systemic problem. It’s also relatively easy to guard against in future.
- illiac786 3y ago
  well but it is very difficult to guard against all exceptional situation requiring some basic aviation skills. i think the point made is that you can fix leaks one by one, which takes a very long time, or you can know the abstraction layer below. fixing one leak and assuming there isn’t any other is not the right strategy, is my point.
- lobocinza 3y ago
  It does looks systemic. Modern planes being design to fly by themselves and new pilots being trained as button pushers with no intuition over the machine they are supposed to control in an emergency. Not that automation is bad but the brain-machine interface is degraded at this point.

athrowaway3z 3y ago

I think there are a couple of things wrong with this comment and analogy. Its not clear the author is demanding 'from first principle'. Second, not everybody in university needs the knowledge of flight or the ability to do it themselves - and there are alternatives to flight. Finally, there is a upfront and physical limits to what can be done to the process of flying. Computing and the framework to think about them are endlessly malleable (and applicable). If I take some of the BS being sold today and transplant them back into the aviation metaphor i can only describe it as a donkey ride being sold as flight. So many customer don't have the knowledge to tell the difference. What resonates with me here (and why i don't like this comparison) is what i believe are the ingredients critical to progress. That is: Only when we've figured out how to make something simple can we build on those foundations and take huge leaps forward. There is a limit to how far or high we go when things get too complex. Similar to the idea of technical debt but at the scale of humanity. Tragically we're very bad at recognizing those eureka moments in history when things became an order more simple because naturally we look a back and assume they're obvious.

grishka 3y ago

A friend of mine got a pilot license several years ago. He was taught a lot about how and why planes work. With a small plane it's generally expected that a single person can maintain it, the same way it works for cars, isn't it? Of course large jet airliners are another story, because they're large, expensive, mind-blowingly complex, and owned by airlines.

m463 3y ago

I think the raspberry pi (and possibly arduino) have made learning the foundational principles more accessible. They make it possible to go from circuit fundamentals up to unix sysadmin fundamentals.

ahazred8ta 3y ago

"One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day this will be an airborne life. But by then men will have forgotten how to fly; they will be passengers on machines whose conductors are carefully promoted to a familiarity with labelled buttons, and in whose minds knowledge of the sky and the wind and the way of weather will be extraneous as passing fiction." -- Beryl Markham, West with the Night, 1942 (first person to solo the Atlantic east to west)

seabass-labrax 3y ago
Thank you for sharing that here. Your post is why there should be a 'favourite' button for comments as well as posts. Edit: there is one, and I've just clicked it!

ndjfkfbfnrk 3y ago

[dead]

zlg_codes 3y ago

For which narrowly defined version of 'fine'? The only people thinking we're doing fine are those profiting from exploitation.