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A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

cnn.com

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Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#251

Post by nonethewiser »

sumtechguy wrote: post #241
JCM9 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NOTAM system is something that a room full of decent engineers could easily build from scratch and make it infinitely better in a short time. It’s essentially just a database of categorized posts with some APIs for sending entries and and returning them when requested. These government IT teams spend way more than what it should cost and end up with bloated ancient tech that barely works. That’s not speaking poor…

There is a whole group of people who their job depends on the system existing like it does. One dude I worked with re-did a procurement system with a few spreadsheets. He got tired of waiting for 30 people to 'do it'. As soon as his boss found it the whole project he was on was scrapped and he was demoted shortly thereafter. His 'sin'? He had accidently found a way to put 30 people out of a job. These systems exist l…

And the kicker is that you're paying for it.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#252

Post by nonethewiser »

Someone1234 wrote: post #214
JCM9 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NOTAM system is something that a room full of decent engineers could easily build from scratch and make it infinitely better in a short time. It’s essentially just a database of categorized posts with some APIs for sending entries and and returning them when requested. These government IT teams spend way more than what it should cost and end up with bloated ancient tech that barely works. That’s not speaking poor…

"I haven't seen the requirements, know little to nothing about the system, but I could knock that out in a weekend with a few Red Bulls." This stuff is such cringe, it is the type of response you see from fresh CS students who haven't started working yet and think everything is a piece of demo work where the requirements don't matter and that everything is simple if you just start writing some code. Obviously the NOT…

> "I haven't seen the requirements, know little to nothing about the system, but I could knock that out in a weekend with a few Red Bulls." This stuff is such cringe

You mean the quote that you just made up?

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#253

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

sclarisse wrote: post #217
katbyte wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame the fact freight generally overrules passenger: https://youtu.be/qQTjLWIHN74 Amtrak isn’t allowed to be successful Either way rather be stuck on a train then a plane anyday

There’s a reason for that. Freight has priority because the freight companies actually own the rails, and actually use them, and it’s a significant contributor to the US economy. Amtrak is an unwelcome guest that they are required by law to put up with. If they wanted better service, Amtrak could pay for it, except the big cross country routes are already crazy unprofitable. The actual sane solution is to shut down t…

Well, another option is that the government could pay for Amtrak’s track the way they do for roads. We don't make car manufacturers or taxi/bus companies pay for the roads, so I don't see why it's on Amtrak to pay for their own rail.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#254

Post by jjk166 »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #140
gnarbarian wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a lot of time at the FAA writing software. (6+ years) there is a huge culture of process, policy and not a whole lot of thinking or analysis or actually understanding the problems that they are working on. it is maddening. imagine a spreadsheet with 700 lines in it telling you that you need to do ABCDEFG each of those lines is instructing you to write a document detailing a procedure with the chain of custody…

It sounds like it would be very simple to implement correctly if it was literally spelled out like what your describing?

The problem is that spelling out complicated things is hard. Take the law for example - in theory we have a coherent code that specifies exactly what things are crimes and the appropriate methods of dealing with them. In practice, it takes teams of highly trained professionals and an elaborate system of courts to clarify what these laws mean in all but the most trivial cases.

Generally you need some flexibility to handle slight variations in circumstance whenever making a decision, and at times things come down to judgement calls that can not be turned into an algorithm. But bureaucracies don't like empowering their workers to make decisions, and so you get ever more conoluted instructions to shift the decision making process higher up the ladder.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#255

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

VLM wrote: post #211
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who want a job like that should just be on UBI instead. Then at least we'd have systems that could change to meet the needs of their users in a timely way.

The people who need a pyramid structure to strive for, and office politics to fight, will never settle for "from each according to their ability and to each according to their need", and those are the people we've selected for.

So we give them a pyramid to fight over. We should just stop letting it be the whole world.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#256

Post by nonethewiser »

JCM9 wrote: post #237
Someone1234 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I haven't seen the requirements, know little to nothing about the system, but I could knock that out in a weekend with a few Red Bulls." This stuff is such cringe, it is the type of response you see from fresh CS students who haven't started working yet and think everything is a piece of demo work where the requirements don't matter and that everything is simple if you just start writing some code. Obviously the NOT…

I hear you. But the flip side is there is often a tendency to massively over complicate things in a way that bakes in valueless complexity and bloat, which is very much the norm in large government systems. I’m practice this attitude is far more common and destructive long term.

I think it's way worse than adding complexity and bloat. There are processes that specifically prevent anyone from understanding or owning the system. The complexity and bloat is a side product of the fact that the work was siloedd, contracted out, and everyone washed their hands off the result. Which also takes exponentially more time and people.

Its optimized for inefficiency.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#257

Post by gnarbarian »

malfist wrote: post #228
gnarbarian wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

demonstrably the policies employed by the FAA do not effectively avert risk (in software). It's more akin to risk aversion theater.

Which is why we've not had a commercial plane crash since.......2009? Seems FAA is pretty effective at reducing risk.

a few things

1) mostly thank the airline operators for that.

2) the fact the 737 Max disasters happened outside the US was a matter of chance not exemplary policies by the FAA. FAA policies did not prevent the deployment and roll out of this dangerous aircraft in the United States and did not lead to grounding of the aircraft until multiple events occurred.

3) I'm mostly talking about software here, and I believe a big part of this issue is shoe-horning software into the policies and procedures specifically designed for aviation. there are so many little pointless (in most contexts) requirements that cause the engineers working on these systems to lose the forest through the trees. the FAA creates its own complexity which prevents thinking holistically about our systems in a meaningful or effective manner.

in many ways this is a force of entropy. the more lines of code you have to support thousands of requirements and the more revisions you make to those lines of code without a top to bottom refactor the more likely you are to have insidious bugs that pop out like this incident.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#258

Post by CamperBob2 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #214
JCM9 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NOTAM system is something that a room full of decent engineers could easily build from scratch and make it infinitely better in a short time. It’s essentially just a database of categorized posts with some APIs for sending entries and and returning them when requested. These government IT teams spend way more than what it should cost and end up with bloated ancient tech that barely works. That’s not speaking poor…

"I haven't seen the requirements, know little to nothing about the system, but I could knock that out in a weekend with a few Red Bulls." This stuff is such cringe, it is the type of response you see from fresh CS students who haven't started working yet and think everything is a piece of demo work where the requirements don't matter and that everything is simple if you just start writing some code. Obviously the NOT…

What makes this a hard problem, exactly? It has to work no matter what, but it also doesn't have to do very much.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#259

Post by haswell »

gnarbarian wrote: post #224
huslage wrote: post #219

You all seem to think this is similar in value or operation to a web app. It is not. It is a safety-critical system that requires very stringent operational and development guidelines ON PURPOSE. The idea that the FAA shouldn't be risk averse in this system is absolutely ridiculous. The complexity of operating the airspace of an entire nation is nothing to scoff at and the importance of the NOTAM system should not be…

demonstrably the policies employed by the FAA do not effectively avert risk (in software). It's more akin to risk aversion theater.

There’s a lot to unpack in your claim, and this really hinges on your definition of “effective”.

What do you consider to be effective, and how would you differentiate it from theater?

Right up front, it seems necessary to account for the relative safety of flying if that safety has nothing to do with FAA policies.

It also seems that any safety policy that is effective enough will eventually appear indistinguishable from theater as people become more and more disconnected from the possibility of disaster.

Ozone mitigations come immediately to mind.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#260

Post by throw5kns82 »

sclarisse wrote: post #217
katbyte wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame the fact freight generally overrules passenger: https://youtu.be/qQTjLWIHN74 Amtrak isn’t allowed to be successful Either way rather be stuck on a train then a plane anyday

There’s a reason for that. Freight has priority because the freight companies actually own the rails, and actually use them, and it’s a significant contributor to the US economy. Amtrak is an unwelcome guest that they are required by law to put up with. If they wanted better service, Amtrak could pay for it, except the big cross country routes are already crazy unprofitable. The actual sane solution is to shut down t…

Your comment gives the impression that Amtrak has no business operating on the tracks they do.

The reason the freight companies own those rails is primarily from the land grants made my the federal government which came with obligations, such as providing passenger service. Amtrak has trackage rights because the freight companies wanted to divest their passenger rail operations. Maybe an unwelcome guest, but essentially a former part of their own operations.

Anyhow, buses are an insufficient substitute for passenger trains and already available from other operators. If they were sufficient people wouldn't be on the trains.

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