The software running on the FAA flight control systems, DOD command and comms systems, and satellite navigations outclass pretty much anything I've seen from th

The software running on the FAA flight control systems, DOD command and comms systems, and satellite navigations outclass pretty much anything I've seen from the startup space in terms of quality. It sounds glorious, doesn't it? I wrote software for submarines. The innovation is outsourced and is done long before these systems start development. It's all about integration and stifling quality control. More effort is spent on generating paperwork than on developing the system. A corporate government contractor will bend over to get a contract, letting the customer dictate the details of the design (for example: specifying that CORBA must be used for all inter-process communication). The "quality" of the software comes from taking horrible code and beating it into submission with QA over the course of months. The user interfaces that come out of this process make me pity the poor sailors. Coming up with these impressive technologies and then integrating them into real systems are two completely different activities, separated temporally by about a decade. The glory rests with the former only.