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NASA Goes SourceForge
refactorator writes "We have a lift-off! The NASA Ames Research Center has open sourced Java PathFinder , a JVM that is an explicit state software model checker, all written in Java. For the first time, the complete master development site of a live NASA software engineering project is hosted on SourceForge. Read the official press release for details. The team around John Penix, Willem Visser, and Peter Mehlitz fought long and hard to get the development hosted outside of NASA, to enable true collaborative software development. Now show the government that it works - join the fray. May Java PathFinder boldly go where no NASA program has gone before." (Both Slashdot and SourceForge are part of VA Software.)
This app spiders through all routes of an app through the bytecode. Not only will this become a very stable and usable debugging application, but the applications that borrow from this application are endless with possibilities. For NASA to OS an app, this was probably the best choice!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
IANARS Damn.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Doesn't our government exist to serve the general public? Why aren't more government software development projects open source? Why was it such a battle to make this particular application open source?
Don't get me wrong, this is a great feat by NASA-Ames, but it's something I already expect as a taxpayer...
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
NASA WorldWind has been on SourceForge since September. Though most development happens over IRC.
As I understand it, this is just a tool to track down potential errors in the software. It is not mission critical software, but rather a tool to analyze mission critical software. I doubt that NASA is too concerned that someone will mess it up beyond belief. They've probably got a review process in place to ensure that any new features are properly checked before they go into use at NASA.
What I find interesting, is that this move seems to signal that NASA is looking at using Java in mission critical areas. (Not just data analysis as in the Mars rovers.) Could it be that NASA is finally giving up on Ada and embracing the safety, reliability, and simplicity of Java? If so, it would certainly be a huge culteral shift for them.
Hmm... maybe I should go polish my resume...
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
World Wind ( http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.html )is also open source. I think there are other NASA open source projects as well. This definitely isn't NASA's first venture into open source, although it may be their first project release on SourceForge.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Not flamebait here; but what does it matter?
Let's say this java thingie miscalculates some data because it incorrectly interprets input as being in metric units, when in fact it's in imperial units.
"It could never happen!" I can hear all of you saying.
Well, it could, it can and it did.
Maybe if there had been x-thousand eyes looking at the code, it might have been caught by someone.
Bottom line, mistakes happen, but in open-source, you lower the percent of them.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
This is not the first app that NASA has open sourced, just the first one on sf.net. NASA has an OS website at
http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/
Evolution or ID?
With NASA, for not validating/testing a solution enough, just as it would be my responsibility if I implemented a half-assed piece of software into a corporate environment without adequate testing. If NASA went down to the hardware store and bought a garden hose valve for a rocket fuel tank, slapped it on the night of a launch and it failed and sent a rocket into the drink- would you blame the garden hose valve maker? Course not. We like to point fingers all the time at things other than our decision-making process.
I help volunteer for a car club which teaches high performance driving at various racetracks. A lot of stuff becomes Really Important when you're driving close to the limits of your talent and the vehicle's equipment. Stuff does go wrong, although it's statistically very rare for there to be an incident caused by mechanical failure. Much of the time, it's driver error.
For example, a wheel falls off. The driver says "I crashed because my wheel fell off." No. The driver crashed because the driver forgot to check lug bolt torque, and the wheel came off because the torque on the lug bolts wasn't correct. A more complex example: "I crashed because my brakes failed". No. The driver crashed because the lap before he crashed, the driver didn't realize his brake pedal was getting really spongy- or worse, he did realize it, and didn't do anything about it (ie, he didn't pit in and bleed the brakes because he wanted to stay out on track).
Please help metamoderate.
How many NASA employees got fired on their first day at work when being introduced to this "John Penix" fellow and giggling uncontrollably right in front of him?
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
The team around John Penix, Willem Visser, and Peter Mehlitz fought long and hard to get the development hosted outside of NASA
Long and hard indeed.
(I'm going to hell for this.)
"Could it be that NASA is finally giving up on Ada and embracing the safety, reliability, and simplicity of Java?"
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Oh, man. I needed a good laugh today.
Aside from the compulsory Slashdot Java FUD, it's really not a joke. Java has a big advantage in that the the bytes codes produced can be verified, and so the program tested, without any concerns of the final deployment platform. This is a major advantage for an organisation like NASA which most likely has a wide range of hardware on which software is deployed.
A few points:
1. Most of the "management" apps are written by people who are not experts in the Java language, thus tend to fubar it pretty well. This is changing, but slowly.
2. Sun is aware of the remote X issues. This is something they are being slow about addressing, but I believe 1.5 should show a marked performance improvement.
3. P2P programs tend to eat a lot of system resources during operation. This doesn't have so much to do with Java as in the way they are designed.
4. The majority of "good" Java software is outside of the area of Desktop applications. Desktop is still an underdeveloped area for Java.
5. Java programs will always take more resources on a mainstream machine. This is due to the fact that the JVM replicates a lot of the functionality of the OS. In instances where the JVM *is* the OS (e.g. embedded development) the difference in resources is insignificant.
Here are a few examples of Java Desktop programs that do their job extremely well:
Azureus
Wurm Online
JGoodies JDiskReport
DataDino Database Explorer
A few games I wrote for a 4k contest.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade