Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by niemandhier 508 days ago
Software that is critical is not build like that.

Medical device control software is not build like that, drone flight control is not build like that, power plant safety is not build like that.

The problem that I noticed in the recent years is: People see the fast dev cycles for non critical software and think they can replicate it in areas where it really does not fit.

I guess that’s how we ended up with Teslas self driving.

I am a bit worried that ai seems to be build like that, using development cycles fit for a convenience appliance for what could be used as a weapon.

3 comments

I always wonder where the devs come from who end up doing important work.

Seniority doesn't mean anything if a dev's 20 years has been spent flinging crap over the wall and then wondering how to keep up with all the support tickets being filed.

How does one get onto the "software is suppose to work" career track.

> How does one get onto the "software is suppose to work" career track.

Boring companies that have had IT for a long time; industries like government, taxes, energy, administration, CRM, insurance, pensions, banking, etc. You won't get recruiters knocking on your doorstep to come and work for those though, and you'll possibly be working with 10+ year old tech and development practices.

10+ year old development means practices like scrum and agile? Or do you mean 10+ year old tech like Golang and Rust? /s of course but I think you need to calibrate your level of "old" :)
React included
Yes, I think a lot of people underestimate the age of some of the popular frameworks/"libraries". React has been "Enterprise approved" for a long time, and is a safe choice for managers.
Go into database internals, or flight control, or hard real time operating systems. Those are areas where it has to work.
In my experience: all over. It's the company that teaches them not to screw up the important work.
Join a robotics team in college
> Medical device control software is not build like that > power plant safety is not build like that.

Agreed.

> drone flight control is not build like that

You obviously haven't been working in the drone industry, have you? Just a guess :-).

Depends on the drones. 249g Camera drone ? Probably.

45k€ agricultural spraying drone? At least the ones I had the privilege to look at were programmed quite paranoid. Farmers tend to get really pissed if their equipment dies because of software issues.

May I ask the brand of the ones you are referring to? I'm curious now :-)
*built, not build, just fyi, as it is past tense not present tense.