[luriel]

From wikipedia:

"Unlike previous aircraft, such as the F-22, all software for the F-35 is written in C++ for faster code development."

Seems that C++ is fulfilling its intended purpose nicely: http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/I_did_it_for_you_all

Or perhaps Bjarne's real goal was to end all wars ;)

Edit: Oh, and it seems somebody has not read The Mythical Man Month:

"Because of this delay and the increased complexity of the jet's third and final software block, Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department have added additional resources to fielding Block III software"

[16s]

An entire squadron of F-22's (non C++) lost all systems when they crossed the International Date Line en route to Japan in 2007. The pilots almost lost control and only survived because they could visually follow fuel tankers back to Hawaii. You can't blame that on C++. All systems have bugs.

Source - http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot-down-b...

[smacktoward]

All systems have bugs.

I'm sure that was a great comfort to the pilots in the F-22s.

[WalterBright]

All airplanes have bugs, too.

The F-80, for example, if you flew it too fast (and the engine was powerful enough to do that in level flight) the airplane would suddenly "pitch up", fold the wings back, and crash.

There are endless examples of these kinds of "bugs" in leading edge fighter design that have nothing to do with software.

[arethuza]

I was reading to "One Minute to Midnight" about the Cuban msisile crisis and the account of flying a U-2 was pretty scary - at high altitude they had a very narrow range of speeds at which they could fly, fly too fast and the wings come off, fly to slowly and the plane stalls.

[outworlder]

This is called the "coffin corner". It varies for different aircrafts, but they all have it, including commercial liners.

[WalterBright]

The P-51 had an interesting problem shared with other high torque single engine fighters of its day. If you're coming in for a landing, with the engine idling, decided to abort and firewalled the throttle, the airplane would rotate about the crankshaft.

This killed a lot of pilots.

[arethuza]

"The aircraft's stall speed at that altitude is only 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h) below its maximum speed"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2

[darkestkhan]

Someone did persuade them to shelve Ada... and then they get into this mess ;)

They are unlucky - there is no better alternative in writing this kind of software than Ada [well, there is SPARK but it is subset of Ada with annotations].

[Cieplak]

I just learned that Ada has higher performance benchmarks than C in many cases, for whatever that is worth.

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/which-programming-lang...

[16s]

The joint strike fighter (F-35) coding standard is very nice: http://www2.research.att.com/~bs/JSF-AV-rules.pdf

[munin]

"C++ is dying off now," ... 12 years later ... (I know the interview is satire but I don't think that line was wholly satirical)

[seanmcdirmid]

Coincidentally, I haven't programmed in C++ for about 12 years. I'm sure its dead for a large segment of the programming population, and its still much alive for another segment.

[crazypyro]

That interview was very interesting.... I'm kind of interested what the response to its leak was now though....

[trapexit]

It's a parody.

http://www.snopes.com/computer/program/stroustrup.asp

[evoxed]

Too bad, since given the discussion topic here this would have made the perfect pun: "no company in its right mind would start a C++ project without a pilot trial" (emph. added) (rimshot)

[crazypyro]

Okay, I kind of assumed it was a joke, but I'm too young to know all the history. Thought maybe I missed something.... Thanks for the info!