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What the F-86 can teach us about software development

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Re: What the F-86 can teach us about software development

#11

Post by Symmetry »

pedrocr wrote: post #5

See "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War" for a more complete description of his life. The article doesn't do it justice. http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316...

Not only did Boyd make important contributions to the theory of air combat (and contests under time pressure in general), he helped develop ways to quantify the manoeuvrability of aircraft leading to the F-15 and F-16.

Re: What the F-86 can teach us about software development

#12

Post by thalur »

nkassis wrote: post #6
parfe wrote: post #4

What a disappointing conclusion to an interesting historial blurb. American shot down lots of Russians because we had fly by wire planes. So Pair programming and stand up meetings are the obvious conclusion. What a joke.

I had the same reaction. It felt like a sneaky publicity for Agile. On the other hand, the writer found one hell of a nice hook to get people to read the article.

It was a good story, but I stopped when it got to: "Speed through the loop beats quality and this is something we can apply to all aspects of the software development process." The jump from piloting a plane to "its therefore obviously true for software" without a shred of evidence was a little too much for me.

Re: What the F-86 can teach us about software development

#13

Post by gvb »

parfe wrote: post #4

What a disappointing conclusion to an interesting historial blurb. American shot down lots of Russians because we had fly by wire planes. So Pair programming and stand up meetings are the obvious conclusion. What a joke.

Nitpick, the controls were "mechanically assisted" (i.e. "power steering"), not fly by wire. The first FBW fighter was the F-16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_...

Re: What the F-86 can teach us about software development

#15

Post by borism »

hassy wrote: post #7

In addition to the tenuous link between the two activities, the 10 to 1 ratio is almost certainly untrue. Details here (in the main text and in cited materials): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-86_Sabre#Korean_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG-15#Operational_history Isolating success in dogfights to flight controls seems like a gross oversimplification. I would like to see the original source for this (attributed t…

I love how you're being downvoted for pointing to more realistic numbers.

Re: What the F-86 can teach us about software development

#16

Post by borism »

gvb wrote: post #13
parfe wrote: post #4

What a disappointing conclusion to an interesting historial blurb. American shot down lots of Russians because we had fly by wire planes. So Pair programming and stand up meetings are the obvious conclusion. What a joke.

Nitpick, the controls were "mechanically assisted" (i.e. "power steering"), not fly by wire. The first FBW fighter was the F-16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_...

sorry to burst your bubble (again), but it wasn't.

http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/220176-first-aircraft-use-fly...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-9....

http://www.globalaircraft.org/planes/cf-105_avro_arrow.pl

Re: What the F-86 can teach us about software development

#17

Post by jedc »

pedrocr wrote: post #5

See "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War" for a more complete description of his life. The article doesn't do it justice. http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316...

Or the book "Certain to Win" which was written by one of his "disciples" with Boyd's input on how to apply all of Boyd's thoughts (which are far more complex than what the blog post shows) to business situations.

http://www.amazon.com/Certain-Win-Strategy-Applied-Business/...

Re: What the F-86 can teach us about software development

#18

Post by joeycfan »

jedc wrote: post #17
pedrocr wrote: post #5

See "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War" for a more complete description of his life. The article doesn't do it justice. http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316...

Or the book "Certain to Win" which was written by one of his "disciples" with Boyd's input on how to apply all of Boyd's thoughts (which are far more complex than what the blog post shows) to business situations. http://www.amazon.com/Certain-Win-Strategy-Applied-Business/...

Yes. Boyd was a great sage of air warfare. A national hero.
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