6 ms·

You know there's a software engineer somewhere that saw this as a potential problem, brought up a solution, and had that solution rejected because handling it w

You know there's a software engineer somewhere that saw this as a potential problem, brought up a solution, and had that solution rejected because handling it would add 40 hours of work to a project.

ryandrake 2y ago
... or there's a software engineer somewhere who simply assumed that three letter navaid identifiers were globally unique, and baked that assumption into the code. I guess we now need a "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Aviation Data" site :)
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  Or even more straightforward, just don’t believe anyone 100% knows what they are doing until they exhaustively list every assumption they are making.
  - gregmac 2y ago
    Which also means never assume the exhaustive list is 100%.
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      Bingo, without some means of credible verification, then assume it’s incomplete.
    - Filligree 2y ago
      I wouldn't be able to produce such a list, even for areas where I totally do know everything that would be on the list.
  - madcaptenor 2y ago
    Even more straightforward, just don’t believe anyone 100% knows what they are doing.
- metaltyphoon 2y ago
  Did aviation software for 7 years. This is 100% the first assumption about waypoint / navaid when new devs come in.
- em-bee 2y ago
  or falsehoods programmers believe about global identifiers
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  And this is why you always use surrogate keys and not natural keys. No matter how much you convince yourself that your natural key is unique and will never change, if a human created the value then a human can change the value or create duplicates, and eventually will.
  - dx034 2y ago
    But that wouldn't help you here. The flight plan will come in with the code and you'll still have to resolve that to your keys.
    - jjk166 2y ago
      Sure, but that means you are putting in the infrastructure to resolve it, instead of assuming there will never be a need to.
hyperliner 2y ago
[dead]
CrimsonCape 2y ago
C dev: "You are telling me that the three digit codes are not globally unique??? And now we have to add more bits to the struct?? That's going to kill our perfectly optimized bit layout in memory! F***! This whole app is going to sh**"
- throw0101a 2y ago
  > C dev: "You are telling me that the three digit codes are not globally unique??? They are understood not to be. They are generally known to be regionally unique. The "DVL" code is unique with-in FAA/Transport Canada control, and the "DVL" is unique with-in EASA space. There are pre-defined three-letter codes: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code And pre-defined four-letter codes: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code There are also five-letter names for major route points: * https://data.icao.int/icads/Product/View/98 https://data.icao.int/icads/Product/View/98 * https://ruk.ca/content/icao-icard-and-5lnc-how-those-5-letter-aeronautical-waypoint-codes-get-their-names https://ruk.ca/content/icao-icard-and-5lnc-how-those-5-lette... If there are duplicates there is a resolution process: * https://www.icao.int/WACAF/Documents/Meetings/2014/ICARD/ICAO-5LNC-DuplicateResolution.pdf https://www.icao.int/WACAF/Documents/Meetings/2014/ICARD/ICA...
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    Hum... Somebody has a list of foreign local-codes sharing the same space as the local ones? I assumed IATA messed up, not I'm wondering how that even happens. It's not even easy to discover the local codes of remote aviation authorities.
    - skissane 2y ago
      > I assumed IATA messed up, This isn’t IATA. IATA manages codes used for passenger and cargo bookings, which are distinct from the codes used by pilots and air traffic control we are talking about here-ultimately overseen by ICAO. These codes include a lot of stuff which is irrelevant to passengers/freight, such as navigation waypoints, military airbases (which normally would never accept a civilian flight, but still could be used for an emergency landing-plus civilian and military ATC coordinate with each other to avoid conflicts)
shagie 2y ago
CGP Grey The Maddening Mess of Airport Codes! https://youtu.be/jfOUVYQnuhw https://youtu.be/jfOUVYQnuhw I'd rather deal with designing tables to properly represent names.
nightowl_games 2y ago
I don't know that and I don't like this assumption that only 'managers' make mistakes, or that software engineers are always right. I thinks needlessly adversarial, biased and largely incorrect.
- zer8k 2y ago
  Spoken like a manager. Look, when you're barking orders at the guys in the trenches who, understandably in fear for their jobs, do the stupid "business-smart" thing, then it is entirely the fault of management. I can't tell you how many times just in the last year I've been blamed-by-proxy for doing something that was decreed upon me by some moron in a corner office. Everything is an emergency, everything needs to be done yesterday, everything is changing all the time because King Shit and his merry band of boot-licking middle managers decide it should be. Software engineers, especially ones with significant experience, are almost surely more right than middle managers. "Shouldn't we consider this case?" is almost always met with some parable about "overengineering" and followed up by a healthy dose of "that's not AGILE". I have grown so tired of this and thanks to the massive crater in job mobility most of us just do as we are told. It's the power imbalance. In this light, all blame should fall on the manager unless it can be explicitly shown to be developer problems. The addage "those who can, do, and those who can't, teach" applies equally to management. When it's my f@#$U neck on the line and the only option to keep my job is do the stupid thing you can bet I'll do the stupid thing. Thank god there's no malpractice law in software. Poor you - only one of our jobs is getting shipped overseas.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    Your attitude is super antagonistic and your relationship with management is not representative of the industry. I recommend you consider a different job or if this pattern repeats at every job that you reflect on how you interact with managers to improve.
  - astrange 2y ago
    I don't think either of your jobs are getting shipped overseas. > Thank god there's no malpractice law in software. This is aerospace, there are such things, but there's also blameless postmortems. And it happened overseas!

You know there's a software engineer somewhere that saw this as a potential problem, brought up a solution, and had that solution rejected because handling it would add 40 hours of work to a project.

ryandrake 2y ago

... or there's a software engineer somewhere who simply assumed that three letter navaid identifiers were globally unique, and baked that assumption into the code. I guess we now need a "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Aviation Data" site :)

MichaelZuo 2y ago
Or even more straightforward, just don’t believe anyone 100% knows what they are doing until they exhaustively list every assumption they are making.
- gregmac 2y ago
  Which also means never assume the exhaustive list is 100%.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    Bingo, without some means of credible verification, then assume it’s incomplete.
  - Filligree 2y ago
    I wouldn't be able to produce such a list, even for areas where I totally do know everything that would be on the list.
- madcaptenor 2y ago
  Even more straightforward, just don’t believe anyone 100% knows what they are doing.
metaltyphoon 2y ago
Did aviation software for 7 years. This is 100% the first assumption about waypoint / navaid when new devs come in.
em-bee 2y ago
or falsehoods programmers believe about global identifiers
SoftTalker 2y ago
And this is why you always use surrogate keys and not natural keys. No matter how much you convince yourself that your natural key is unique and will never change, if a human created the value then a human can change the value or create duplicates, and eventually will.
- dx034 2y ago
  But that wouldn't help you here. The flight plan will come in with the code and you'll still have to resolve that to your keys.
  - jjk166 2y ago
    Sure, but that means you are putting in the infrastructure to resolve it, instead of assuming there will never be a need to.

hyperliner 2y ago

[dead]

CrimsonCape 2y ago

C dev: "You are telling me that the three digit codes are not globally unique??? And now we have to add more bits to the struct?? That's going to kill our perfectly optimized bit layout in memory! F***! This whole app is going to sh**"

throw0101a 2y ago
> C dev: "You are telling me that the three digit codes are not globally unique??? They are understood not to be. They are generally known to be regionally unique. The "DVL" code is unique with-in FAA/Transport Canada control, and the "DVL" is unique with-in EASA space. There are pre-defined three-letter codes: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code And pre-defined four-letter codes: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code There are also five-letter names for major route points: * https://data.icao.int/icads/Product/View/98 https://data.icao.int/icads/Product/View/98 * https://ruk.ca/content/icao-icard-and-5lnc-how-those-5-letter-aeronautical-waypoint-codes-get-their-names https://ruk.ca/content/icao-icard-and-5lnc-how-those-5-lette... If there are duplicates there is a resolution process: * https://www.icao.int/WACAF/Documents/Meetings/2014/ICARD/ICAO-5LNC-DuplicateResolution.pdf https://www.icao.int/WACAF/Documents/Meetings/2014/ICARD/ICA...
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  Hum... Somebody has a list of foreign local-codes sharing the same space as the local ones? I assumed IATA messed up, not I'm wondering how that even happens. It's not even easy to discover the local codes of remote aviation authorities.
  - skissane 2y ago
    > I assumed IATA messed up, This isn’t IATA. IATA manages codes used for passenger and cargo bookings, which are distinct from the codes used by pilots and air traffic control we are talking about here-ultimately overseen by ICAO. These codes include a lot of stuff which is irrelevant to passengers/freight, such as navigation waypoints, military airbases (which normally would never accept a civilian flight, but still could be used for an emergency landing-plus civilian and military ATC coordinate with each other to avoid conflicts)

shagie 2y ago

CGP Grey The Maddening Mess of Airport Codes! https://youtu.be/jfOUVYQnuhw https://youtu.be/jfOUVYQnuhw I'd rather deal with designing tables to properly represent names.

nightowl_games 2y ago

I don't know that and I don't like this assumption that only 'managers' make mistakes, or that software engineers are always right. I thinks needlessly adversarial, biased and largely incorrect.

zer8k 2y ago
Spoken like a manager. Look, when you're barking orders at the guys in the trenches who, understandably in fear for their jobs, do the stupid "business-smart" thing, then it is entirely the fault of management. I can't tell you how many times just in the last year I've been blamed-by-proxy for doing something that was decreed upon me by some moron in a corner office. Everything is an emergency, everything needs to be done yesterday, everything is changing all the time because King Shit and his merry band of boot-licking middle managers decide it should be. Software engineers, especially ones with significant experience, are almost surely more right than middle managers. "Shouldn't we consider this case?" is almost always met with some parable about "overengineering" and followed up by a healthy dose of "that's not AGILE". I have grown so tired of this and thanks to the massive crater in job mobility most of us just do as we are told. It's the power imbalance. In this light, all blame should fall on the manager unless it can be explicitly shown to be developer problems. The addage "those who can, do, and those who can't, teach" applies equally to management. When it's my f@#$U neck on the line and the only option to keep my job is do the stupid thing you can bet I'll do the stupid thing. Thank god there's no malpractice law in software. Poor you - only one of our jobs is getting shipped overseas.
- kortilla 2y ago
  Your attitude is super antagonistic and your relationship with management is not representative of the industry. I recommend you consider a different job or if this pattern repeats at every job that you reflect on how you interact with managers to improve.
- astrange 2y ago
  I don't think either of your jobs are getting shipped overseas. > Thank god there's no malpractice law in software. This is aerospace, there are such things, but there's also blameless postmortems. And it happened overseas!