4 ms·

The aerospace-IT analogy is an interesting one. I have done programming in aerospace environments and am always amazed that every single screw, nut, and bolt m

by edw519 17y ago

The aerospace-IT analogy is an interesting one. I have done programming in aerospace environments and am always amazed that every single screw, nut, and bolt must be redundantly inspected, QA'ed, and certified but "QA" as it applies to software checks source code indenting and not much else. We have a long way to go before application software is as bulletproof as flying.

spitfire 17y ago
http://libre.adacore.com/libre/ http://libre.adacore.com/libre/ Not really that far. The tools are already there, and available to use. We just have to gain a culture of quality. Which is the real problem. The technology industry has a culture of cowboys and constantly forging ahead rather than sober introspection (masturbatory blog posts aside). My background in aviation has had a huge effect on my life in technology. Every pilot has been in a "situation" over their flying career, some more than once. When we do our hanger flying we swap stories about how to safely get down every time. This just doesn't happen in technology. It should.
- miloshh 17y ago
  A culture of quality has a significant cost. This is justified if lives are at stake, but that's pretty much the only case where it's justified. Grocery stores also don't check each apple 3 times independently if it's not rotten. :)
  - spitfire 17y ago
    Implicit in what you're saying is that you're willing to suffer the costs if your software fails. For me, if my banks software decides to munge some data, that's not cool. If my $2K laptop crashes, that's not cool. More importantly, a culture of quality mainly has initial costs, after that maintaining it is a small marginal cost with significant savings in reduced defects.
    - grimoire 17y ago
      If the bank's software decides to munge some data, no one dies. If your $2K laptop crashes, no one dies. The cost (both financial and human) of an aviation failure far exceeds the cost of your laptop crashing.
    - nostrademons 17y ago
      Some software industries - aviation and healthcare particularly, but also to a lesser extent finance - are regulated. And have strong cultures of culture. And it works - how often are plane crashes due to "pilot error" vs. due to "software error"? For most things, though, that's just plain unnecessary. If my free web browser crashes - well, I'm a little annoyed, but I suck it up and restart the program. And I'd much rather use that free browser that crashes than wait until they can make it perfect and crash-free. There's an opportunity cost to everything. Time spent making sure your program never crashes is time not spent on solving new problems, and it's likely those new problems are a lot more pressing than "I need to reboot Firefox every 2-3 days because it has such horrible memory leaks."
      - spitfire 17y ago
        I am not at all sympathetic to your world view. You're advocating that we make bad software on purpose. Not only that but you're advocating placing the burden of defects as an externality onto users. This to me is unprofessional. We have the technology and skills to build reliable software, without significant additional cost. To do anything else should be criminal. I'll use an analogy. You wouldn't date a fat, ugly, dull girl if you knew with even the most trivial effort you could date an attractive girl who's great at conversation and loves to discuss René Magritte and Douglas Hofstadter, would you? No. So why accept the same in software? EDIT: I should note that here in B.C., Canada Software Engineer is a certified title. You may not legally call yourself a software engineer unless you are licensed. hhttp://www.apeg.bc.ca/ http://www.apeg.bc.ca/
        orangecat 17y ago
        I am not at all sympathetic to your world view. You're advocating that we make bad software on purpose. Not only that but you're advocating placing the burden of defects as an externality onto users. He's saying that good software available today for $X beats flawless software available in 3 years for $5X, and I agree even if X=0. With the obvious exceptions for scenarios where people will die if it goes wrong. This to me is unprofessional. We have the technology and skills to build reliable software, without significant additional cost. And for some reason every organization in the world declines to use this magic bullet.

by edw519 17y ago

spitfire 17y ago

http://libre.adacore.com/libre/ http://libre.adacore.com/libre/ Not really that far. The tools are already there, and available to use. We just have to gain a culture of quality. Which is the real problem. The technology industry has a culture of cowboys and constantly forging ahead rather than sober introspection (masturbatory blog posts aside). My background in aviation has had a huge effect on my life in technology. Every pilot has been in a "situation" over their flying career, some more than once. When we do our hanger flying we swap stories about how to safely get down every time. This just doesn't happen in technology. It should.

miloshh 17y ago
A culture of quality has a significant cost. This is justified if lives are at stake, but that's pretty much the only case where it's justified. Grocery stores also don't check each apple 3 times independently if it's not rotten. :)
- spitfire 17y ago
  Implicit in what you're saying is that you're willing to suffer the costs if your software fails. For me, if my banks software decides to munge some data, that's not cool. If my $2K laptop crashes, that's not cool. More importantly, a culture of quality mainly has initial costs, after that maintaining it is a small marginal cost with significant savings in reduced defects.
  - grimoire 17y ago
    If the bank's software decides to munge some data, no one dies. If your $2K laptop crashes, no one dies. The cost (both financial and human) of an aviation failure far exceeds the cost of your laptop crashing.
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    Some software industries - aviation and healthcare particularly, but also to a lesser extent finance - are regulated. And have strong cultures of culture. And it works - how often are plane crashes due to "pilot error" vs. due to "software error"? For most things, though, that's just plain unnecessary. If my free web browser crashes - well, I'm a little annoyed, but I suck it up and restart the program. And I'd much rather use that free browser that crashes than wait until they can make it perfect and crash-free. There's an opportunity cost to everything. Time spent making sure your program never crashes is time not spent on solving new problems, and it's likely those new problems are a lot more pressing than "I need to reboot Firefox every 2-3 days because it has such horrible memory leaks."
    - spitfire 17y ago
      I am not at all sympathetic to your world view. You're advocating that we make bad software on purpose. Not only that but you're advocating placing the burden of defects as an externality onto users. This to me is unprofessional. We have the technology and skills to build reliable software, without significant additional cost. To do anything else should be criminal. I'll use an analogy. You wouldn't date a fat, ugly, dull girl if you knew with even the most trivial effort you could date an attractive girl who's great at conversation and loves to discuss René Magritte and Douglas Hofstadter, would you? No. So why accept the same in software? EDIT: I should note that here in B.C., Canada Software Engineer is a certified title. You may not legally call yourself a software engineer unless you are licensed. hhttp://www.apeg.bc.ca/ http://www.apeg.bc.ca/
      - orangecat 17y ago
        I am not at all sympathetic to your world view. You're advocating that we make bad software on purpose. Not only that but you're advocating placing the burden of defects as an externality onto users. He's saying that good software available today for $X beats flawless software available in 3 years for $5X, and I agree even if X=0. With the obvious exceptions for scenarios where people will die if it goes wrong. This to me is unprofessional. We have the technology and skills to build reliable software, without significant additional cost. And for some reason every organization in the world declines to use this magic bullet.