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United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

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Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the defense industry, it’s very much like the aerospace industry in that we deal with human life as a consequence of our work. We have software QA departments that operate very much like manufacturing or aerospace QA. Software QA provides nothing of value to software development; having it as a dedicated function works against the overtly stated goals of the function and counterintuitively acts to degrade q…

It sounds like they are calling something QA but using it as a liability shield. It makes sense that you are upset about that, but naming something QA and having it do something else doesn't mean that QA as an effort is bad. It means that the people doing that are being deceptive.

It's like saying communism isnt the problem, but that it s how every single group attempted to implement it that should be blamed.

Sure, maybe, but if nobody ever can implement the theoretical utopia, maybe we should talk of things humans can do instead and ditch the unimplementable idea.

QA cannot be done by a separate team the way you dream: it will always be a political buffer zone staffed by the cheapest half-competent people you can find, expulsing good people into dev or management. Or you merge it into dev/solution design.

The reason is simple: just like contract law, you only care about quality once you are in trouble and need to reverse back the source of the issue to give to the client a post mortem. Otherwise, you care first about velocity, or $ input/hr of effort.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#552
post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good software teams build quality into projects by introducing continuous integration, unit testing, creating feedback, and tightening these feedback loops. Agreed, for good software teams. I would content that most software teams at most companies are not good. Which is to ask, with an average to bad software team is it better to have integrated or separate QA?

Does it make sense to degrade the performance of good software teams because bad software teams exist? Ideally we’d always have good software teams, but in the real world sometimes you have to build software with bad teams. Leaders have options, they can do things like reduce scope, increase budget, increase schedule, or full on abandon or cancel the project. These are all options available to leaders, but they requi…

> Does it make sense to degrade the performance of good software teams because bad software teams exist?

Consider the classic statistic "most drivers think they are above average".

I posit that the same is true of software teams, almost every team will self-assess as above average, i.e. good. Those teams will then imagine that, being good, they build quality into the process and very little verification QA is done.

I have worked as a software consultant for 15 years now. I've worked with at least 40 separate software teams in that time. Every single team manager would pep talk with "this is the best team I've ever seen". Some of this is obviously blowing smoke to get people to work harder and feel good. But over the years I've had candid conversations with managers and realized that most of the time the genuinely think their team is really good, truly top 10-20%.

Here's the rub. Being a consultant, I'm almost always brought in by higher level management because something is going horribly wrong. The team can't deliver quickly. The software they deliver is bug ridden. They routinely deliver the wrong software (i.e. incorrect interpretation of requirements.)

Often times these problems are not only the fault of the development team, management has issues too. But in every single case, the development team is in dire straits. They have continuous integration sure, and unit tests, and nightly builds, and lots of green check marks. But the unit tests test that the test works. The stress tests have no reality based basis for expected load. The continuous integration system builds software but it can't be deployed in that form for x, y & z reasons, so production has a special build system, etc...

In 15 years I have never once encountered a team that would not benefit from a QA team doing boring, old school, black box manual testing. And the teams that most adamantly refuse to accept that reality are precisely those that think they are really top tier because they have 90+% unit test coverage, use agile and do nightly builds.

So, my question is, do you (I don't mean the specific "you" here, rather everyone should ask themselves this, all the time) think that most bad software teams know they are bad? Including the one you are part of? Would it really hurt to have some ye olde QA, just in case, you know, you are actually just average? :)

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these false door panels are not. It's not a control surface, but it is a "moving part." That's what's baffling to me, that they spent a lot of effort building this hinge and pin roller system, and designed the door to hinge open up to 15 degrees. It makes me wonder if there's maintenance procedures that at some point would require the operation of that door to successfully complete. Otherwise, the mechanism itself…

It's built to be an actual emergency exit. It needs to be usable depending on how many passengers the interior is configured for. So it has all of the door bits there. Maybe some parts like the emergency escape slide are not installed. e: I should be clear that it's not usable as an emergency exit, as configured by Alaska. However the operator could choose to activate it later and install a usable exit.

> It's built to be an actual emergency exit.

If you are correct, then the implication is that the concern extends beyond door plugs for MAX-9 737s to all emergency exit doors on all models of aircraft sharing this design. This is somewhat reminiscent of the huge problem with the 688 (Los Angeles) class submarines, where the discovery of a faulty weld that had passed inspections raised doubts about all welds.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people pay more for slower transportation?

I'd pay extra to take the train for shorter trips. The entire experience is better, from not passing through a security theater production to the larger seats. I've never had a train sitting on the tarmac for hours, either, my plane trips frequently involve waits and delays.

> had a train sitting on the tarmac for hours

I took the Amtrak a couple times from DC through WVA and have had several delays trying to get from VA to KY due to priority being given to the freight trains. I remember one trip having a one or two hour delay in the middle of no where while we were side tracked.

It is much, much more comfortable than a plane though.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#555
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect even at its worst, software development could learn a lot from aircraft QA. Especially since most shops have pretty much tossed professional career QA out the window.

I agree. I’m regularly critical of Boeing Defense (particularly space contracts where I’m a huge Boeing skeptic), but I think people are pretty off base if they think Boeing is just completely incompetent. Airliner safety is insanely good. Just vast seas of competence, but when there’s a super rare failure, the incorrect impression people get is that Boeing (or Airbus) is just full of incompetency. Almost nothing tha…

Being better then driving shouldn't be the standart. Specially driving in the US.

Flying isn't safer then trains I would assume.

Flying has the advantage of being seperated from almost everything else. Most accidents happen when there is mixed traffic, specially cars operated by people with minimal training.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#556
post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like they are calling something QA but using it as a liability shield. It makes sense that you are upset about that, but naming something QA and having it do something else doesn't mean that QA as an effort is bad. It means that the people doing that are being deceptive.

It's like saying communism isnt the problem, but that it s how every single group attempted to implement it that should be blamed. Sure, maybe, but if nobody ever can implement the theoretical utopia, maybe we should talk of things humans can do instead and ditch the unimplementable idea. QA cannot be done by a separate team the way you dream: it will always be a political buffer zone staffed by the cheapest half-com…

Other fields do QA just fine.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#557

At this point, I believe Boeing needs to suffer the corporate death penalty, because it no longer operates as a net benefit to the public. It needs to be dissolved, and its assets sold off. Criminal charges should be pursued to the maximum support of the law against all of the corporate officers. Those in the FAA and other oversight agencies who failed to properly oversee them should also be prosecuted. Failing the a…

How do you feel about car makers? They kill a lot of people. Food poisoning, bathtubs, lightning… I don’t disagree that it appears that Boeing has acted badly here. And I’m frustrated with golden parachutes, out of court settlements, and other ways of evading corporate responsibility. But this is a moment in time, and I think Boeing could redeem itself.

I feel that any corporation which goes rogue deserves to be dissolved, and the people who are responsible should be punished.

Serving the public good should be one of the responsibilities of a corporate charter. If we're not collectively better because a corporation exists, it needs to go.

If we grant Corporations rights, they should also have commensurate responsibilities.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#558
post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it make sense to degrade the performance of good software teams because bad software teams exist? Ideally we’d always have good software teams, but in the real world sometimes you have to build software with bad teams. Leaders have options, they can do things like reduce scope, increase budget, increase schedule, or full on abandon or cancel the project. These are all options available to leaders, but they requi…

> Ideally we’d always have good software teams, but in the real world sometimes you have to build software with bad teams. Here's a real, perhaps unexpected counterpoint. Say you have a good software team. How do they build good software with bad management?

Quit and do it for someone else

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#559
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. " " Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

wouldn't dismissing discussion of hiring practices on product quality be trampling curiosity for political or ideological battle?

I'm afraid I don't understand your question

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally there should be a solid spec written and then qa can test against the spec. Maybe there is somewhere that does write solid specs, including accounting for corner cases, but in my 25 years working professionally in the industry, I’ve never seen it.

The only complete and precise specification of software is the code itself. If some other form of specification was complete, we would be able to auto-generate the code.

This is beside the point. The code specifies what the product _is_, not what it "should" be. If you ask for a word processor and I deliver a perfectly bug-free and feature-complete calculator would you really believe it lived up to spec?
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