[pjc50]

I don't know where this got a downvote from because it's correct - it's quite hard to build sensible automatic integration tests for embedded code unless you have the luxury of a full system emulation.

The only thing that resource constraint forces is less code, especially less dependencies, because you run out of space.

The Toyota "unintended acceleration" court case was a flagship example of bad embedded code, that we rarely get to see.

[jacobush]

The Toyota computer is like a super computer compared to old mainframes. IIRC the Toyota program had 10k global variables updated by spaghetti C code. So you had a lot of space, enough to shoot yourself with C code. Old mainframe code in contrast often operated on records in a batch fashion, with a pretty clear input and output.

Of course, the antipattern on enterprise code comparable to thousands of global variables in C code, is to have thousands of columns in hundreds, or thousands even, of database tables, all intertwined and used only God knows where.

[monocasa]

AFAIR, the were also autogenning code from a Matlab model of the engine, and that's where the 10k globals thing is from. Like yeah there's technically C code that's doing that, but come on.

[freedomben]

Interesting, I thought the "unintended acceleration" was actually just floor mats creeping up and holding the accelerator pedal. Gonna have to google some stuff now :-)

[pjc50]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643204

It's one of those Rashomon situations where I'm not sure we can ever be entirely sure but it seems to have stopped.

[jackalo]

Thank you for linking that. The comments in it share some terrifying stories.

[ambicapter]

That was Toyota's explanation for what was happening. Turned out to be a lie or a hasty conclusion, I don't remember which.