Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System • Hacker News Board

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#151

Post by gmueckl » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

forkerenok wrote: post #53

taobility wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only naive ppl blame the language instead of the codes based on the language.

Well said, though I think the GP (and many others) blames the platform, not the language. I find C# and .NET runtime (before it meets windows) quite nice. I'm not a big C#-er myself though.

The .NET CLR and core C# runtime libraries are really nice to work with. But things become somewhat Microsoft-y (that is, nice-looking but amazingly half-assed in the most unexpected ways) when you start to do things like writing GUIs.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#152

Post by coldtea » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #8

Why is this interesting or surprising? Of course almost all challengers have hacky tech under the hood because they don't have the resources. Winning from that position is possible not because of generally better tech but by delivering something that the incumbents don't. Remember the demo of the first iPhone (vs the huge expertise of Nokia). Or how Microsoft won the desktop starting from a single user, cooperative m…

>Why is this interesting or surprising? Of course almost all challengers have hacky tech under the hood because they don't have the resources

First, we're talking about a multi-billion dollar company here (they've raised ~ 15 B), not some small "challenger".

Second, your example is the iPhone and Facebook. Those don't have the potential to kill their owners or run over people.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#153

Post by nickik » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #11

I used to work at SpaceX on the team that did a piece of software called "WarpDrive". It was a massive monolithic ASP.NET application, with large swaths done with ASP.NET WebForms and a slow frontier of ASP.NET MVC gradually growing when I was working there. This application was responsible for practically everything that ran the factory: inventory, supply chain management, cost analysis, etc. Elon is a big Windows f…

My respect for Elon just dropped 10x (still high) because I know he is a fan of Windows.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#154

Post by coldtea » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #19

dswalter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars weigh thousands of pounds and routinely drive upwards of 60 miles per hour. The success of the first iPhone or Facebook app didn't depend on using it to navigate through life-and-death situations not only for the users but also for everyone around them. There are places for 'move fast and break things'. But cars move fast already, and they can really break things.

I think this is a naive perspective. I've heard many similar stories from friends that work in the German automotive industry, and I think you would be surprised how many payment systems are tied together (e.g. (insecure) FTP servers to sync daily payments). Every organization has these types of things internally. As an engineer, I don't like it, but it's a fact of life.

>I think you would be surprised how many payment systems are tied together (e.g. (insecure) FTP servers to sync daily payments).

It's not like those matter. The bank itself guarantees the integrity of your account and can reverse charges. And of course would be insured for such losses.

Being killed by a car, otoh, is more permanent.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#155

Post by cbanek » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

bmiller2 wrote: post #71

ddevault wrote: post #11

I used to work at SpaceX on the team that did a piece of software called "WarpDrive". It was a massive monolithic ASP.NET application, with large swaths done with ASP.NET WebForms and a slow frontier of ASP.NET MVC gradually growing when I was working there. This application was responsible for practically everything that ran the factory: inventory, supply chain management, cost analysis, etc. Elon is a big Windows f…

I used to work at SpaceX on avionics software, in a role very similar to OP, and my experience was similar in some respects. The tech and products were complex. The turnover rate was high and training new hires was a lengthy process. The new projects coming down the pipeline never ceased (this was during a period where FH/F9-1.1/Dragon/Crew was all under design/development and constant iteration). It was fun for a yo…

Former SpaceX Flight Software Engineer here.

Agree about WarpDrive being pretty amazing for all the stuff it did. Although amazing things tend to just clump up from all the features that you need, and you end up with an app that is hard to manage.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#156

Post by coldtea » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #20

dswalter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars weigh thousands of pounds and routinely drive upwards of 60 miles per hour. The success of the first iPhone or Facebook app didn't depend on using it to navigate through life-and-death situations not only for the users but also for everyone around them. There are places for 'move fast and break things'. But cars move fast already, and they can really break things.

Tesla’s infotainment and IT infrastructure is unrelated to their safety. If this guy worked on motor control or braking system firmware then that would be scary, but he didn’t.

>Tesla’s infotainment and IT infrastructure is unrelated to their safety

Because drivers can't get distracted and crash because of a failure in the infotainment and IT infrastructure?

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#157

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

kevan wrote: post #59

8_hours_ago wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the rockets fly with a heavily customized Linux install My jaw hit the floor the first time I heard this. Why Linux instead of an RTOS?? Apparently Tesla's autopilot also runs Linux, which seems like a huge accident waiting to happen (pun intended).

I'm not familiar with this space but I'm pretty sure there are hard realtime kernels for linux. I'd hope they're using one.

[deleted]

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#158

Post by symmitchry » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

blauditore wrote: post #75

Is there any way to confirm this is actually legit? I mean, theoretically one could just make such things up, no?

Does anything about this thread really surprise you though? As to be unbelievable? Do you think that other car manufacturers are that much better? I've read so many insane stories about software in Toyotas (or was it Honda?), and those are very old, very well established companies. That a company like Tesla would have rock solid software would be a miracle.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#159

Post by loourr » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

arcticfox wrote: post #120

mlaretallack wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree completely. Hard real time is possible with Linux, we use it for sub millisecond control of Traffic Lights. The only issue we ever hit is proving that the code running is the stuff we expected to run.

> Agree completely. Hard real time is possible with Linux, we use it for sub millisecond control of Traffic Lights. Out of curiosity, why do traffic light controls need to be that precise?

I don't actually know, but my guess is time drift with respect to other lights.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#160

Post by gamblor956 » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #122

gamblor956 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the many ASP.NET software packages that handle all the backoffice functions you've described, it sounds like they chose the right platform for that. Why would you want to run backoffice on Linux and then re-create all those wheels by hand in-house? Relying on the expertise of other companies for basic backoffice systems is actually recommended practice until you become big enough to actually need custom softwar…

Very little off-the-shelf software was in use. The whole thing was custom.

Custom as in customized Oracle/SAP, or custom as in from-the-ground up custom?

The former is generally a given for a company of any significant size (employees or business activity). The latter is unheard of for most backoffice functions (other than specialized accounting and finance functions) since it's a waste of money and would place the company at significant legal and regulatory risks--it would require effectively becoming experts in accounting, HR, etc.