5 ms·

You're talking about industrial PLCs. They're programmed using a-bit-more-fancy Scratch snappy blocks. There is no version control. The firmware contained paths

You're talking about industrial PLCs. They're programmed using a-bit-more-fancy Scratch snappy blocks. There is no version control. The firmware contained paths embedded as strings, so we know that firmware for each model and customer was developed in a separate folder on disk. I wouldn't be surprised if they also had .zip files with backups of previous versions.

spaceribs 3y ago
Do you have more information about this sort of programming? I'd like to read about it.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Google for PLC programming environment.
- q3k 3y ago
  IEC 61131-3
  - spaceribs 3y ago
    ah, thank you!
jacquesm 3y ago
I'm intimately familiar with PLC programming, yes, you can do it the 1980's way but there are also plenty of environments that allow for modern version control. https://www.google.com/search?q=version+control+plc+programming https://www.google.com/search?q=version+control+plc+programm... You'd have to be pretty daft to do this kind of development today and not take advantage of version control and even the most visual versions of these systems eventually output (text) files. You may not be able to do an easy line-by-line comparison but you will have a commit log with helpful messages. Look for 'engage in anti-competitive behavior' in the log message ;)
- TomaszZielinski 3y ago
  What about: rogue hackers maliciously squashed our whole repo into a single commit?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I don't doubt that's exactly what would happen, in fact I think that that rogue hacker is about to do his thing, quick, erase the backups!
    - TomaszZielinski 3y ago
      Yeah.. I've just realized that while it's entertaining to watch how it unfolds or predict what can happen next, it's also sad, because pretty much everybody in the rail industry loses..
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        One of my business partners works for PKP it's very annoying to see this all unfold and in this particular way. Poland has so much potential, these idiots are ruining Polands image in ways that really matter. But then again, as a Dutch person I have enough issues locally that I can't even complain... Ugly times.
        ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
        I have a friend that runs a business, where he hires Polish developers to do his coding. He absolutely raves about them. It sounds like he's got some good coders.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        Poland has a very strong technology and mathematics tradition that goes back decades. It's one of the reasons Poland has some strong feelings about their role in the breaking of the Enigma, for the longest time that was played down.
TomaszZielinski 3y ago
Oops, rogue hackers deleted our .zip files with the backups! :) EDIT: BTW having no version control would be pretty telling on its own. It's a critical piece of software, that controls a train..
q3k 3y ago
The IDE for these PLCs actually has VCS integration! It's SVN, but it's still better than nothing. Its on-disk representation of graphical 61131-3 languages (FBD / SFC) is text-based and somewhat human readable, so there's nothing technically preventing the developers from keeping all of this in any other VCS of their choice.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  There is nothing wrong with SVN, it's just that Git allows for some workflows that are better suited to larger teams and more complex projects. But for your average PLC project with a team of 10 and one binary as the output it should be more than enough. You likely won't see any 'feature branches' or frequent merges in this kind of environment.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    > There is nothing wrong with SVN Except merging things, and handling a lot of files... There are lots of small things wrong with SVN. But it's indeed usable.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      I'm aware of repos with a few million files in it that have been going since 2003 and not a single issue. Merging things is different than in Git but it works. I use both, and I'm not religious about either, some things are easier in Git, some are easier in SVN. Git provides more footguns. And loads and points them too.
bluGill 3y ago
If it was developed anytime after 1990 (probably before) you will find plenty of programmers willing to be expert witnesses and tell the court that the company not having version control is gross incompetence, the only reason a company would do that would be so they can hide evidence of illegal actions. As such the court should impose punitary damages. Of course before going on the stand the expert witness will work with a lawyer to word smith the above into something the court will better understand. however I think the generic idea is something everyone here will agree with.
tbrownaw 3y ago
> There is no version control. I've used a thing that not only doesn't play nice with versioning (your local workspace is a collection of embedded db files) but doesn't play nice with multiple developers (no way to sync workspaces). I still managed to get it into version control, even if useful things like diffs didn't do anything useful.

spaceribs 3y ago

Do you have more information about this sort of programming? I'd like to read about it.

jacquesm 3y ago
Google for PLC programming environment.
q3k 3y ago
IEC 61131-3
- spaceribs 3y ago
  ah, thank you!

jacquesm 3y ago

I'm intimately familiar with PLC programming, yes, you can do it the 1980's way but there are also plenty of environments that allow for modern version control. https://www.google.com/search?q=version+control+plc+programming https://www.google.com/search?q=version+control+plc+programm... You'd have to be pretty daft to do this kind of development today and not take advantage of version control and even the most visual versions of these systems eventually output (text) files. You may not be able to do an easy line-by-line comparison but you will have a commit log with helpful messages. Look for 'engage in anti-competitive behavior' in the log message ;)

TomaszZielinski 3y ago
What about: rogue hackers maliciously squashed our whole repo into a single commit?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I don't doubt that's exactly what would happen, in fact I think that that rogue hacker is about to do his thing, quick, erase the backups!
  - TomaszZielinski 3y ago
    Yeah.. I've just realized that while it's entertaining to watch how it unfolds or predict what can happen next, it's also sad, because pretty much everybody in the rail industry loses..
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      One of my business partners works for PKP it's very annoying to see this all unfold and in this particular way. Poland has so much potential, these idiots are ruining Polands image in ways that really matter. But then again, as a Dutch person I have enough issues locally that I can't even complain... Ugly times.
      - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
        I have a friend that runs a business, where he hires Polish developers to do his coding. He absolutely raves about them. It sounds like he's got some good coders.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        Poland has a very strong technology and mathematics tradition that goes back decades. It's one of the reasons Poland has some strong feelings about their role in the breaking of the Enigma, for the longest time that was played down.

TomaszZielinski 3y ago

Oops, rogue hackers deleted our .zip files with the backups! :) EDIT: BTW having no version control would be pretty telling on its own. It's a critical piece of software, that controls a train..

q3k 3y ago

The IDE for these PLCs actually has VCS integration! It's SVN, but it's still better than nothing. Its on-disk representation of graphical 61131-3 languages (FBD / SFC) is text-based and somewhat human readable, so there's nothing technically preventing the developers from keeping all of this in any other VCS of their choice.

jacquesm 3y ago
There is nothing wrong with SVN, it's just that Git allows for some workflows that are better suited to larger teams and more complex projects. But for your average PLC project with a team of 10 and one binary as the output it should be more than enough. You likely won't see any 'feature branches' or frequent merges in this kind of environment.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  > There is nothing wrong with SVN Except merging things, and handling a lot of files... There are lots of small things wrong with SVN. But it's indeed usable.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I'm aware of repos with a few million files in it that have been going since 2003 and not a single issue. Merging things is different than in Git but it works. I use both, and I'm not religious about either, some things are easier in Git, some are easier in SVN. Git provides more footguns. And loads and points them too.

bluGill 3y ago

If it was developed anytime after 1990 (probably before) you will find plenty of programmers willing to be expert witnesses and tell the court that the company not having version control is gross incompetence, the only reason a company would do that would be so they can hide evidence of illegal actions. As such the court should impose punitary damages. Of course before going on the stand the expert witness will work with a lawyer to word smith the above into something the court will better understand. however I think the generic idea is something everyone here will agree with.

tbrownaw 3y ago

> There is no version control. I've used a thing that not only doesn't play nice with versioning (your local workspace is a collection of embedded db files) but doesn't play nice with multiple developers (no way to sync workspaces). I still managed to get it into version control, even if useful things like diffs didn't do anything useful.