As have I. I've debugged compilers for new processors because they were working incorrectly. And I've worked on project that deliberately turned optimization off (or at least way down) for that reason. I'd like to know from the AC who posted it more detail about what changed in his environment. I mean, I get that it changed and they don't want to go through re-certification. But I'm just curious about the details.
How do the output of your algorithms change between different compilers? Is it related to timing? Is it that the math library changed causing minor (but still significant in your context) differences in precision? Is it something else entirely?
Yep. And doing the upgrade to a new development environment to prevent obsolescence is not a difficult process when you already have a full test plan in place to ensure you did it right. And in any kind of certified environment, you already have that test plan for the first time you did it. Running through that full test plan again means you can very easily mitigate the risk. Sure, it's not cheap to do it but it can be significantly cheaper than trying to keep outdated legacy systems running.
Because you would possibly have to keep the same compiler executable for 25 years.
Why? Every project I've worked on that's 20 years and older has updated their environment to fight off obsolescence. Even the under-funded government projects
And struggling to maintain an outdated system in some kind of virtual environment isn't too risky?
If you're doing any kind of maintenance or continual upgrade process, you're going to find yourself upgrading your development environment at least once or twice over 25+ years. And if you have any sense whatsoever, you'll have a suite of regression tests to run on your software already. You can use that to validate the new environment when you compile a baseline. I've been involved with several projects that migrated from one platform to another. I've been the technical lead on a project that even changed languages (from JOVIAL to C) because we were moving to a new processor that didn't have a JOVIAL compiler. Sure, there is some risk. But it's quantifiable and with a good set of tests, it can be completely mitigated.
On the other hand, if you're not already testing your software as it evolves, there's no point worrying about any risk being introduced because there's no way you know how much risk you start with.
Why do you need to ensure you can keep recompiling it with the same old compiler for the next 25 years? Why not design it with the expectation that the development environment will evolve? Ensure you design in portability between compilers and development platform operating systems and you don't have to keep stringing along an environment that's already obsolete.
If you make your system idiot proof, the world will send you bigger idiots. But it appears in this case that everyone from management on down didn't perform their due diligence. They didn't even bother to try to make it idiot proof. And in the avionics software business, means that people are going to die.
Absolutely this. Any kind of software on any airplane has to go through layers upon layers of specification, design, validation and acceptance before it ships. This was a deliberate choice by bureaucrats who have no idea what they are doing as much as it's a failure by the software engineers to ensure integrity of the system at all times. They should all be brought up on charges.
How many times have you used Notepad/Wordpad instead of Word?
I don't. I always have either Notepad++ or VIM installed on every machine so that I have a useful text editor. I haven't had to stoop to using Notepad/Wordpad for a very long time.
No one is being "forced" to do anything. All this is doing is making one more type of incompatibility that further drives a wedge between the modern web and corporate IT because I guarantee that the companies that haven't upgraded from XP/IE8 won't be phased by this new incompatibility.
Good point. They'll probably just charge forward without caring who they leave behind.
But things like this is why corporate IT is still clinging to Windows XP and IE8 in droves. They'd rather stick with what's installed and working than spending the time and money to upgrade.
While it's a good idea to push the discontinuation of NPAPI, I think Google are being too aggressive in their phase out. There are a tremendous number of websites that will be disabled if NPAPI is dropped altogether. It's going to take a long time for them to all be brought up to modern standards, especially if they're not well funded.
It's important to push the conversation and give developers motivation to do the necessary work but if they push too hard, the web will push back and they'll end up shooting themselves in the foot.
Absolutely this. Run all your phone/network/TV cable wires in conduit and have a few extra runs. If you ever want to pull anything out and replace it, having conduit in place will make it much easier.
Of the latest buzzword bingo - what are 'cord cutters'?
They are the people who have cut their cable/satellite TV subscriptions and get their entertainment from other sources, either via DVD/Blu-Ray or online streaming services.
Video interviews are a pain in the keyster to watch. The more you can do to get rid of them, the better. Videos should only be used when you actually need to show the audience something visual. Watching a web cam pointed at someone's face for 20 minutes adds absolutely zero value whatsoever to the story. And cutting it down to 4 minutes doesn't necessarily add much value if I have to go and read the transcript anyway. If I have to read the transcript anyway, the video serves no purpose.
Trouble is, transcripts of interviews aren't much better anyway. Reading an interview is a painful process. It wastes too much time because I have to sift through a bunch of conversation to glean the useful information out of the transcript. And far too often the signal to noise ratio in an interview isn't very high. I much prefer articles where a journalist takes the useful information out of the interview and presents it in a clear and concise article about the topic.
So yeah, the more you can get rid of interviews on video, transcripts of conversation, etc. and replace them with well written articles, the better.
The world is not black and white. Stop trying to treat it as such.
There is a difference between saying something without any intention to follow through (as many people are wont to do) and a real, legitimate threat. It is difficult to tell the difference, even if you actually stop the knee jerk reaction and start actually thinking.
I, for example, quote some awful song lyrics when I'm in a foul mood. It's a very effective way for me to vent without actually doing any harm to anyone. And the last time I got in a physical altercation with anyone was back in 1985 or so. It would be entirely reasonable for anyone looking at my history to assume that my posting of song lyrics is not an actual threat to anyone. That is, unless they applied an idiotic zero-tolerance policy and treated everything everyone posted as a literal threat.
Slashdot Mirror
As have I. I've debugged compilers for new processors because they were working incorrectly. And I've worked on project that deliberately turned optimization off (or at least way down) for that reason. I'd like to know from the AC who posted it more detail about what changed in his environment. I mean, I get that it changed and they don't want to go through re-certification. But I'm just curious about the details.
Unit tests are only a part of a good regression test suite, especially in a complex embedded system.
How do the output of your algorithms change between different compilers? Is it related to timing? Is it that the math library changed causing minor (but still significant in your context) differences in precision? Is it something else entirely?
Yep. And doing the upgrade to a new development environment to prevent obsolescence is not a difficult process when you already have a full test plan in place to ensure you did it right. And in any kind of certified environment, you already have that test plan for the first time you did it. Running through that full test plan again means you can very easily mitigate the risk. Sure, it's not cheap to do it but it can be significantly cheaper than trying to keep outdated legacy systems running.
Because you would possibly have to keep the same compiler executable for 25 years.
Why? Every project I've worked on that's 20 years and older has updated their environment to fight off obsolescence. Even the under-funded government projects
You know what else is obsolete that drives this particular conversation?
Properly budgeting for ongoing support and maintenance, especially if you're already being raped for hardware and software support.
That will affect maintaining a virtual environment just as much as it will evolving the environment over the years.
A comprehensive test plan was sufficient to convince the FAA when we did large scale changes like that for flight software.
YMMV
And struggling to maintain an outdated system in some kind of virtual environment isn't too risky?
If you're doing any kind of maintenance or continual upgrade process, you're going to find yourself upgrading your development environment at least once or twice over 25+ years. And if you have any sense whatsoever, you'll have a suite of regression tests to run on your software already. You can use that to validate the new environment when you compile a baseline. I've been involved with several projects that migrated from one platform to another. I've been the technical lead on a project that even changed languages (from JOVIAL to C) because we were moving to a new processor that didn't have a JOVIAL compiler. Sure, there is some risk. But it's quantifiable and with a good set of tests, it can be completely mitigated.
On the other hand, if you're not already testing your software as it evolves, there's no point worrying about any risk being introduced because there's no way you know how much risk you start with.
Sorry for my dyslexia. I thought I read Ubuntu 10.04, not 14.04. So it's not already obsolete. But it will be in the future.
Why do you need to ensure you can keep recompiling it with the same old compiler for the next 25 years? Why not design it with the expectation that the development environment will evolve? Ensure you design in portability between compilers and development platform operating systems and you don't have to keep stringing along an environment that's already obsolete.
If you make your system idiot proof, the world will send you bigger idiots. But it appears in this case that everyone from management on down didn't perform their due diligence. They didn't even bother to try to make it idiot proof. And in the avionics software business, means that people are going to die.
Absolutely this. Any kind of software on any airplane has to go through layers upon layers of specification, design, validation and acceptance before it ships. This was a deliberate choice by bureaucrats who have no idea what they are doing as much as it's a failure by the software engineers to ensure integrity of the system at all times. They should all be brought up on charges.
How many times have you used Notepad/Wordpad instead of Word?
I don't. I always have either Notepad++ or VIM installed on every machine so that I have a useful text editor. I haven't had to stoop to using Notepad/Wordpad for a very long time.
A large company that isn't paying to buy as many politicians as they can? *chuckle* Let me know how that works out for you.
No one is being "forced" to do anything. All this is doing is making one more type of incompatibility that further drives a wedge between the modern web and corporate IT because I guarantee that the companies that haven't upgraded from XP/IE8 won't be phased by this new incompatibility.
Good point. They'll probably just charge forward without caring who they leave behind.
But things like this is why corporate IT is still clinging to Windows XP and IE8 in droves. They'd rather stick with what's installed and working than spending the time and money to upgrade.
While it's a good idea to push the discontinuation of NPAPI, I think Google are being too aggressive in their phase out. There are a tremendous number of websites that will be disabled if NPAPI is dropped altogether. It's going to take a long time for them to all be brought up to modern standards, especially if they're not well funded.
It's important to push the conversation and give developers motivation to do the necessary work but if they push too hard, the web will push back and they'll end up shooting themselves in the foot.
And as we all know, 5/4 of the population can't figure out fractions.
Absolutely this. Run all your phone/network/TV cable wires in conduit and have a few extra runs. If you ever want to pull anything out and replace it, having conduit in place will make it much easier.
But will it run Linux?
Of the latest buzzword bingo - what are 'cord cutters'?
They are the people who have cut their cable/satellite TV subscriptions and get their entertainment from other sources, either via DVD/Blu-Ray or online streaming services.
Oh, and this is 2015. Get rid of flash already.
Video interviews are a pain in the keyster to watch. The more you can do to get rid of them, the better. Videos should only be used when you actually need to show the audience something visual. Watching a web cam pointed at someone's face for 20 minutes adds absolutely zero value whatsoever to the story. And cutting it down to 4 minutes doesn't necessarily add much value if I have to go and read the transcript anyway. If I have to read the transcript anyway, the video serves no purpose.
Trouble is, transcripts of interviews aren't much better anyway. Reading an interview is a painful process. It wastes too much time because I have to sift through a bunch of conversation to glean the useful information out of the transcript. And far too often the signal to noise ratio in an interview isn't very high. I much prefer articles where a journalist takes the useful information out of the interview and presents it in a clear and concise article about the topic.
So yeah, the more you can get rid of interviews on video, transcripts of conversation, etc. and replace them with well written articles, the better.
But! But! I'm OFFENDED by that person exercising their first amendment right to free speech!!!!1!11!11!one!!1!eleven!!!!
/sarcasm
The world is not black and white. Stop trying to treat it as such.
There is a difference between saying something without any intention to follow through (as many people are wont to do) and a real, legitimate threat. It is difficult to tell the difference, even if you actually stop the knee jerk reaction and start actually thinking.
I, for example, quote some awful song lyrics when I'm in a foul mood. It's a very effective way for me to vent without actually doing any harm to anyone. And the last time I got in a physical altercation with anyone was back in 1985 or so. It would be entirely reasonable for anyone looking at my history to assume that my posting of song lyrics is not an actual threat to anyone. That is, unless they applied an idiotic zero-tolerance policy and treated everything everyone posted as a literal threat.
Stop reacting. Start thinking.