60 ms·

Lockheed Reassigns Workers to Fix F-35 Software

37 points by olympus 13y ago

macmac 13y ago
Not only have they added 200 engineers from other projects which will now suffer delays and quality issues, both also "They're running 24-7, what we call lights out." which will ensure massive burn out. Brilliant...
- joezydeco 13y ago
  Why is it called "lights out" if the offices are occupied with coders non-stop?
  - thezilch 13y ago
    Coder caves; no lights, especially not natural; time of day or passing is not in your peripheral.
    - AlisdairSH 13y ago
      Sounds lovely. Is that really a thing? I guess if you paid me enough money, I'd put up with that, but mostly, this makes me glad I declined their job offer several years ago.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  If you time it right, you don't have to hit burnout. In my view, "timing it right" basically means completing the project before burnout. A successful completion followed by a little R&R goes an incredibly long way to combating burnout.
  - macmac 13y ago
    And I suppose they will use their awesome estimation powers that have led them into this mess, to time it right...
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Exactly ;)
sp332 13y ago
The mythical man-month in action!
AnIrishDuck 13y ago
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. - Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. "The Mythical Man-Month".
- jere 13y ago
  >Nine women can't make a baby in one month.
TempleOS 13y ago
God says... 25:40 And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel, they spake unto her, saying, David sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife. 25:41 And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. 25:42 And Abigail hasted, and arose and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that went after her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife. 25:43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of them his wives. 25:44 But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Phalti the son of Laish, which was of Gallim. 26:1 And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon? 26:2 Then Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. ---- A.B.I. Faulty ZIP ZIF?
bediger4000 13y ago
Any one who's worked at Martin Marietta in the past (now part of Lockheed) will recognize this. Martin had a long, long history of doing this sort of thing for projects in trouble. When they get past this (and they will, they have the DoD over a barrel, they just have to not gloat too publicly) the fallout to the F-35 will last as long as F-35s are in operation. In the early 90s, Martin people hand-assembled Titan rocket guidance and control software because some time in the distant past, the assembler had some bugs. The F-35 software group will live with whatever horrific "best practices" the current group of reassigned workers come up with.
- masklinn 13y ago
  > In the early 90s, Martin people hand-assembled Titan rocket guidance and control software What the fuck?
  - bediger4000 13y ago
    To be completely truthful, they compared binary dumps of hand-assembled, and machine-assembled software, to ensure that everything was exactly the same. But yes, they hand-assembled some weird instruction set. I can't recall asking if they assembled to ASCII hexadecimal word (24-bit) representations, or to something else. I believe this was for "Commerical Titan", a short-lived, Titan 34D variant. Four flights, one of which left Intelsat VI in the wrong orbit. That wasn't software, but plugging the wrong cable in.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  I'm hoping this will help justify limiting purchases of the F-35 and replacing it sooner with cheaper, more expendable, but roughly equally effective UCAVs and better missiles.
  - jfb 13y ago
    Common sense couldn't kill the utterly superfluous F-22; the F-35 has way more stakeholders, so don't count on it going away any time soon.
LowKarmaAccount 13y ago
> The F-35 requires more than 8 million lines of code, compared with about 2 million for the F-16 and less than 1 million for other fourth-generation fighter aircraft The F-35 is programmed in C++, while the other aircraft are programmed in Ada, which is one of the reasons that there is so much more code. When you have to code, test, and maintain 8 million lines of C++ in an environment where a single bug can be deadly, you should expect delays. The choice of using C++ to write a system that is designed to never crash and the obvious ignorance of the "mythical man month" does not give a good impression of Lockheed's management.
- hosay123 13y ago
  > a system that is designed to never crash I'm pretty sure no self-respecting engineer would ever attempt to design such a thing (although many might be deluded into thinking that e.g. advanced type systems might help achieve that goal). > choice of using C++ Almost certainly not a good indicator.. much of those LOC are likely integrations from other projects. Who is to say the alternative didn't involve rewriting some more sensitive, costly-to-produce code in Ada?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- olympus 13y ago
  > system that is designed to never crash Oh, they crash. Software on currently fielded jets crash all the time, pilots call them "software anomalies." Systems are designed to fail softly and reboot quickly (~1 minute) and sometimes do so automatically without physically crashing the jet. Sometimes the pilot won't even notice.
  - iyulaev 13y ago
    sometimes do so automatically without physically crashing the jet I hope by "sometimes" you mean "almost every time!"
jongraehl 13y ago
"Accountability". A conspicuously heroic effort (likely counterproductive long-run), because their +$6 billion drip is threatened by lawmakers who don't think they're taking this whole thing seriously. For the sake of whatever competent programmers were already working on the system, I hope this is mostly PR noise.
kevincennis 13y ago
"There’s nothing wrong with flying before we buy. In fact, most of us test drive cars before we [buy]" Except that if we custom-order a car, the manufacturer isn't legally prohibited from selling it to someone else if we end up refusing to buy it.
- davorak 13y ago
  There analogy is not good, but I would also assume that lockheed won a competitive bidding process to get the contract as well. They promised to build it at a certain price and in a certain time.
  - kevincennis 13y ago
    Yup, Lockheed's X-35 beat out a (horrendously ugly) Boeing airplane to win the contract, but my understanding was that the initial orders were cost-plus. That's pretty typical for large procurements of advanced aircraft. It's hard to know long it will take and how much it will cost to build something that bleeding-edge.
stcredzero 13y ago
That plane is not a replacement for the A-10, unless you kid yourself. The loiter time is atrocious.
- nether 13y ago
  Because loitering and enduring battle damage make so much sense in an era of countermeasure-immune SAMs and huge directed-shrapnel warheads. Spitting DU rounds onto a city block also isn't a great idea in today's conflicts. The A-10 is obsolete, the tankbuster role is obsolete, the F-35 isn't perfect but is far more appropriate for today's conflicts.
  - kbolino 13y ago
    Yet we fight a lot of "obsolete" enemies. The effectiveness of the F-35 won't be known until it is battle-tested. Before then, it's all rainbows and unicorns.
    - jfb 13y ago
      We aren't likely to see masses of T-72s rolling under uncontested airspace any time again.
  - harshreality 13y ago
    Drones are far more appropriate for today's conflicts.
vaadu 13y ago
The program should be cancelled. It's way over budget, not as stealthy as originally claimed and completely unnecessary. The DOD should be putting this money and effort into UAVs. I also have to wonder how quickly the Chinese will get the software updates.

37 points by olympus 13y ago

Not only have they added 200 engineers from other projects which will now suffer delays and quality issues, both also "They're running 24-7, what we call lights out." which will ensure massive burn out. Brilliant...

joezydeco 13y ago
Why is it called "lights out" if the offices are occupied with coders non-stop?
- thezilch 13y ago
  Coder caves; no lights, especially not natural; time of day or passing is not in your peripheral.
  - AlisdairSH 13y ago
    Sounds lovely. Is that really a thing? I guess if you paid me enough money, I'd put up with that, but mostly, this makes me glad I declined their job offer several years ago.
sliverstorm 13y ago
If you time it right, you don't have to hit burnout. In my view, "timing it right" basically means completing the project before burnout. A successful completion followed by a little R&R goes an incredibly long way to combating burnout.
- macmac 13y ago
  And I suppose they will use their awesome estimation powers that have led them into this mess, to time it right...
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Exactly ;)

sp332 13y ago

The mythical man-month in action!

AnIrishDuck 13y ago

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. - Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. "The Mythical Man-Month".

jere 13y ago
>Nine women can't make a baby in one month.

TempleOS 13y ago

God says... 25:40 And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel, they spake unto her, saying, David sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife. 25:41 And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. 25:42 And Abigail hasted, and arose and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that went after her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife. 25:43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of them his wives. 25:44 But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Phalti the son of Laish, which was of Gallim. 26:1 And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon? 26:2 Then Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. ---- A.B.I. Faulty ZIP ZIF?

bediger4000 13y ago

Any one who's worked at Martin Marietta in the past (now part of Lockheed) will recognize this. Martin had a long, long history of doing this sort of thing for projects in trouble. When they get past this (and they will, they have the DoD over a barrel, they just have to not gloat too publicly) the fallout to the F-35 will last as long as F-35s are in operation. In the early 90s, Martin people hand-assembled Titan rocket guidance and control software because some time in the distant past, the assembler had some bugs. The F-35 software group will live with whatever horrific "best practices" the current group of reassigned workers come up with.

masklinn 13y ago
> In the early 90s, Martin people hand-assembled Titan rocket guidance and control software What the fuck?
- bediger4000 13y ago
  To be completely truthful, they compared binary dumps of hand-assembled, and machine-assembled software, to ensure that everything was exactly the same. But yes, they hand-assembled some weird instruction set. I can't recall asking if they assembled to ASCII hexadecimal word (24-bit) representations, or to something else. I believe this was for "Commerical Titan", a short-lived, Titan 34D variant. Four flights, one of which left Intelsat VI in the wrong orbit. That wasn't software, but plugging the wrong cable in.
SkyMarshal 13y ago
I'm hoping this will help justify limiting purchases of the F-35 and replacing it sooner with cheaper, more expendable, but roughly equally effective UCAVs and better missiles.
- jfb 13y ago
  Common sense couldn't kill the utterly superfluous F-22; the F-35 has way more stakeholders, so don't count on it going away any time soon.

LowKarmaAccount 13y ago

> The F-35 requires more than 8 million lines of code, compared with about 2 million for the F-16 and less than 1 million for other fourth-generation fighter aircraft The F-35 is programmed in C++, while the other aircraft are programmed in Ada, which is one of the reasons that there is so much more code. When you have to code, test, and maintain 8 million lines of C++ in an environment where a single bug can be deadly, you should expect delays. The choice of using C++ to write a system that is designed to never crash and the obvious ignorance of the "mythical man month" does not give a good impression of Lockheed's management.

hosay123 13y ago
> a system that is designed to never crash I'm pretty sure no self-respecting engineer would ever attempt to design such a thing (although many might be deluded into thinking that e.g. advanced type systems might help achieve that goal). > choice of using C++ Almost certainly not a good indicator.. much of those LOC are likely integrations from other projects. Who is to say the alternative didn't involve rewriting some more sensitive, costly-to-produce code in Ada?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
olympus 13y ago
> system that is designed to never crash Oh, they crash. Software on currently fielded jets crash all the time, pilots call them "software anomalies." Systems are designed to fail softly and reboot quickly (~1 minute) and sometimes do so automatically without physically crashing the jet. Sometimes the pilot won't even notice.
- iyulaev 13y ago
  sometimes do so automatically without physically crashing the jet I hope by "sometimes" you mean "almost every time!"

jongraehl 13y ago

"Accountability". A conspicuously heroic effort (likely counterproductive long-run), because their +$6 billion drip is threatened by lawmakers who don't think they're taking this whole thing seriously. For the sake of whatever competent programmers were already working on the system, I hope this is mostly PR noise.

kevincennis 13y ago

"There’s nothing wrong with flying before we buy. In fact, most of us test drive cars before we [buy]" Except that if we custom-order a car, the manufacturer isn't legally prohibited from selling it to someone else if we end up refusing to buy it.

davorak 13y ago
There analogy is not good, but I would also assume that lockheed won a competitive bidding process to get the contract as well. They promised to build it at a certain price and in a certain time.
- kevincennis 13y ago
  Yup, Lockheed's X-35 beat out a (horrendously ugly) Boeing airplane to win the contract, but my understanding was that the initial orders were cost-plus. That's pretty typical for large procurements of advanced aircraft. It's hard to know long it will take and how much it will cost to build something that bleeding-edge.

stcredzero 13y ago

That plane is not a replacement for the A-10, unless you kid yourself. The loiter time is atrocious.

nether 13y ago
Because loitering and enduring battle damage make so much sense in an era of countermeasure-immune SAMs and huge directed-shrapnel warheads. Spitting DU rounds onto a city block also isn't a great idea in today's conflicts. The A-10 is obsolete, the tankbuster role is obsolete, the F-35 isn't perfect but is far more appropriate for today's conflicts.
- kbolino 13y ago
  Yet we fight a lot of "obsolete" enemies. The effectiveness of the F-35 won't be known until it is battle-tested. Before then, it's all rainbows and unicorns.
  - jfb 13y ago
    We aren't likely to see masses of T-72s rolling under uncontested airspace any time again.
- harshreality 13y ago
  Drones are far more appropriate for today's conflicts.

vaadu 13y ago

The program should be cancelled. It's way over budget, not as stealthy as originally claimed and completely unnecessary. The DOD should be putting this money and effort into UAVs. I also have to wonder how quickly the Chinese will get the software updates.