On 2016-05-27 12:16 PM, Alan Perry wrote:
On May 27, 2016, at 08:41, Swift Griggs <swiftgri...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, 26 May 2016, Toby Thain wrote:
We're pretty much already there.
Agreed. You should hear one of my buddies talk about the air traffic
control software he wrote which was replaced with some horror.
Audits of the F35 software found:
* single points of failure (grounding global fleet)
* security issues
* that software is the single biggest risk to the project
One of the principles of Unix: KISS, has been nearly completely lost.
Nobody calls a meeting anymore to say "What can we get rid of? How can we
simplify this? What is the *right* thing to do here?" It's more like "how
big of a kickback will I get if I put in this nasty thing this vendor
wants to sell?" or "Does the new system have buzz?"
I worked on F35 software 13 years ago. I am not an aviation systems guy, but I
was an expert in a technology being used, which is why I was on the project.
I am both shocked and not surprised that development of the plane has taken so
long. The software guys there experienced with military contract work said that
the project was typical at that point. I left being amazed that anything that
comes through the process ever flies.
The biggest problem that I saw then was technical choices made without
considering the implications of the choices, followed by kludge after kludge to
get around yet something else they hadn't considered. I see that all of the
time on other projects, but the prime contractor and sub-contractor (and
sub-sub-contractor) arrangement that stuff like the F-35 is designed and built
make it hard to change a poor technical choice made before the work is
subcontracted out.
BTW, the primary poor technical choice that I saw was made to reduce costs, not
for lock-in or to give some preferred company business.
It seems that Texas could take some lessons in "reducing costs":
https://www.texastribune.org/2015/02/01/cost-overruns-and-bungles-state-contracting/
But, "Since fiscal 2008, Texas has paid Accenture more than $6.3 billion
for a range of projects, including Medicaid payment services, according
to the state comptroller’s office."
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/a-troubled-state-contract-gets-renewed-scrutiny-bu/npC9Q/
It's almost like there's something else going on, when billing gets into
the 8-11 figure range! Oh, wait, what if we google "accenture kickbacks"???
--Toby
alan
