Why Cutting Costs Is Expensive How $9/Hour Engineers Cost Boeing Billions(medium.com)
medium.com
Why Cutting Costs Is Expensive How $9/Hour Engineers Cost Boeing Billions
https://medium.com/javascript-scene/why-cutting-costs-is-expensive-how-9-hour-software-engineers-cost-boeing-billions-b76dbe571957
6 comments
The problem seems to be that the software blindly trusted input from a single sensor. The issue I take with that is that multiple sensor readings are available on the aircraft. Even in non-life-critical applications like video games, software engineers absolutely are responsible for validating inputs from untrusted sources.
Beyond that, a good software engineer would have ensured that the specification made sense, that the integration with the rest of the system made sense, and that a sensible override system was part of the system design.
That said, the bulk of the article focuses on management's failure to ensure that quality was a priority, and to communicate that clearly in the company culture.
Beyond that, a good software engineer would have ensured that the specification made sense, that the integration with the rest of the system made sense, and that a sensible override system was part of the system design.
That said, the bulk of the article focuses on management's failure to ensure that quality was a priority, and to communicate that clearly in the company culture.
The author read "We believe this can be updated through a software fix" and jumped to the conclusion that this was a software fault. It was not, the software did exactly what it was supposed to do. This is a terrible 'article'.
Got a non-paywall link?
The link should not be paywall protected. Did you try it?
Even the idea that a good software engineer would have caught the problem in the specification seems far fetched. The MCAS software was designed with a low impact (small individual corrections, small maximum total correction) that would have appeared safe to anyone, and those constants were increased later on. Do we expect good software engineers to second-guess changes in physical aero constants coming from aero engineers?