Software is eating the car

Post by neoromantique » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 8:10 AM UTC

duped wrote: post #132

temporallobe wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car guy here. Yeah, I’m with you. My favorite car was a ‘96 Tercel with mechanical steering and a 4-speed manual. It even had manual roll-up windows. It had less than 100 HP, but it was simple as hell to operate, very fun to drive, cheap to maintain, and extremely reliable up until I sold it with nearly 400k miles on the odo. I put an aftermarket stereo and speakers in it and I was set. Only reason I sold it was beca…

Counterpoint, I'm not a car guy and I think too many people own them. But when I'm in a car my priorities are safety, mileage, seat comfort, climate control, sound quality, and smartphone support. I don't really care how much it costs to maintain, and I haven't changed my own oil in over a decade. Modern cars are fine in the UX for what I do. I'd rather not own a car than drive manual, and even vehicles from 10 years…

Post by skocznymroczny » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #3

Short answer to the lede: no, the industry cannot cope. Or rather, it will limp along with bloatware, bugs, and malware exactly the same way we see desktop OSes bloat, or the way we see routers and set-top boxes hacked to become botnets. In my 40+ years in the industry I've yet to see code get SMALLER. With the exception of Linux kernel 1.0 in the 90's which was a step backwards into smaller, more compact code, code…

Post by tim333 » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 9:57 AM UTC

jrwoodruff wrote: post #91

temporallobe wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car guy here. Yeah, I’m with you. My favorite car was a ‘96 Tercel with mechanical steering and a 4-speed manual. It even had manual roll-up windows. It had less than 100 HP, but it was simple as hell to operate, very fun to drive, cheap to maintain, and extremely reliable up until I sold it with nearly 400k miles on the odo. I put an aftermarket stereo and speakers in it and I was set. Only reason I sold it was beca…

Those mid 90s Japanese sedans were awesome. Relatively compact overall, zippy little 4 cylinders engines and manual transmissions. I had an Accord from that era, and loved driving my dads nerdy-as-hell Nissan Sentra. That car was shockingly fun to drive.

Post by vassast » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

waiseristy wrote: post #147

agumonkey wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh its funny.. of all the rust trend storm I cannot recall one mention of automotive industry usage (not that I imply it's not used.. I just don't remember hearing about that).. this is a place where I'd really love safer languages. btw any embedded car ADA shops ?

There's unfortunately no hardware or standards support for Rust, nor will there be any time soon. Silicon vendors don't provide Rust compatible toolchains, and the standards everyone is locked into is C/C++ only

Post by reader_mode » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

justicezyx wrote: post #471

reader_mode wrote: post #313

I got the feeling that car companies treat SW like a cost center, asses in seats kind of mentality. They don't pay well, you work on uninteresting stuff and corporate ladder is likely a dead end. So I doubt they (traditional car companies) are going to get better at software any time soon.

I talked to quite a few car manufacturer in China: Shanghai auto Changan auto First Auto As part of my research into automotive software and exploring opportunity for disruption. They were all on the hype train of "software defined cars". Definitely not just a cost center. Of course they are still figuring out how to do software, and learning from people in the internet industry.