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by cobrausn 4741 days ago
The F-35 has multiple variants, one of which is a STOVL (Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing) aircraft with a vertical flight system. The amount of code necessary to deal with that is likely a large part of the difference in LOC, not to mention the more complicated systems for weapons, radar, communications, etc...

In other words, the fact that it is written in C++ tells you little more than the fact that it is written in C++ and not Ada, but that alone will tell you that they probably expanded their pool of potential programmers by a large margin.
1 comments
MichaelGG 4741 days ago
>expanded their pool of potential programmers

Is that true? I'd think that the main requirements would be experience, intelligence, security clearance, probably familiarity with avionics.

Any good programmer worth working on such a project should be able to switch languages.

I'd hope it's not like some corporate web site that just needs the programming equivalent of warm bodies.

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HeyLaughingBoy 4741 days ago
"Should" does not imply "wants to."

I could switch to COBOL in probably a couple weeks, but you'd have to pay me multiples of my current salary to do so for any length of time.

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cobrausn 4741 days ago
Considering the number of job postings I've seen where they want N+ years of experience, I'd say it's easier to find that in C++ than Ada if they do that.
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