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Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

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Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#581

Post by josefx »

jaimex2 wrote: post #568
user5994461 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's more than 10 years ago, Visual Studio was the only IDE for C++ and the C++ was the most common language.

Why do you think that is? I've always wondered why there's such a small list of decent IDEs for C anything. I usually just stick to vim and a handful of plugins.

For a long time the tools were either proprietary or GNU. Sadly gcc worked well enough that its policy of not exposing anything that could be abused by proprietary software meant that any tooling that surfaced had to work around the free compiler. Remember the day emacs got full featured refactoring support based on GCC? Stallman singlehandedly killed that for exposing too much. Good C++ tooling only started to turn up when Apple made its move from gcc to llvm/clang and we actually got competition in the free compiler space and a compiler based framework to build tools on top.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#582

Post by reitanqild »

ucaetano wrote: post #579
reitanqild wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, as long as it pays good dividends. Not everything needs to grow into the sky.

You do get the fact that a company with no growth but paying dividends will be worth (including the dividends you extracted) exactly what you paid for? It would be worse than buying a bond: you'll get the risk of equity with the returns of a bond.

Not an economist, but I have tried to keep informed and what you say doesn't seem like it should follow.

(Then again English is not my first language.)

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#583

Post by ktal90 »

cbanek wrote: post #155
bmiller2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As someone who interfaced with the Warp system (both software and the organization), I agree with @cbanek. The number of features and the custom nature of it are impressive, but for anyone who had to deal with the politics of improving the system, it was a nightmare. There was (continues to be?) an effort to deconstruct the monolith, but it was a very painful process. Motives from different departments were in constant competition. Getting something done in Warp meant calling hours of meetings and getting the ear of a director/VP who would champion your cause -- and an associated PM that would be ready to serve said VP. This process was so backwards that, if the actual technical work that went in didn't burn someone out, the politics sure could.

It wasn't all bad. There were other groups at X that provided pretty amazing tools for people to get things done (thanks, @cbanek and friends!)

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#584

Post by planteen »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #218
taobility wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Some languages are unfit for certain purposes. For example, Python is not meant for low-level programming, and C is not meant for writing secure, mission-critical applications.

> C is not meant for writing secure, mission-critical applications

What OS kernels are actually used that are written in anything other than C? Plenty of them (INTEGRITY, VxWorks, QNX) written in C are used in secure, mission-critical applications.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#585

Post by bestCauliflower »

I was not aware that a tesla would need so many backend services as he says, but I guess that it makes sense. Do you think that someday they could open up their platform (out of necessity maybe) to third party providers for each of the services? Some competition would mitigate the broken services issues.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#586

Post by mcny »

Amygaz wrote: post #542
pishpash wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a real problem. But if burndown charts can be translated into dollars, this might be noticeable.

It can and it has been for academic reasons. But no employer tracks that, not even in academia... I can’t find the reference I’m looking for, but cost associated with turn over rate due to narcissists is apparently as high as taking care is ASD. I would imagine turn over rate associated with burnouts not due to narcissism, but simply poor & short term management & vision to be at least on par.

Academia is the worst offendor when it comes to overworking junior people like teaching assistants...

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#587

Post by pretendscholar »

joe5644774 wrote: post #509
jgalt212 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

read this book too. The insistence on Windows blew my mind, given his "reputation" as an engineer.

Thinking from first principle you can reason why Elon pushed for windows. Elon is a guy who wants to get done. On windows you get a linear output with time spend on it. On Linux the output is exponential. Relative to windows lot of time is required for entry on Linux.Since Elon is man of output he did not like to spent so much upfront time. Also he don't want to let go the control as he is micro manager.

This has to be a parody of a techbro.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#588

Post by tuba_man »

api wrote: post #337
ryandrake wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard the same thing about the burnout and turnover. Do companies really think they are saving money by paying peanuts, grinding people down to burnout, and then constantly having to rehire/retrain new people as the old ones leave? Meanwhile the code is a mess because nobody has been there longer than a year and there is no architecture or design continuity. Just frantic patches over other frantic patches by burnt…

I think it's a case of what is seen vs. what is unseen combined with "you get what you measure." "We're paying more for programmers than almost anyone else in the industry!" is an obvious thing a bean counter would notice and point out. Productivity is harder to measure, and all that time lost to training on the job doesn't immediately leap out in spreadsheets because it's blended with actual work.

> "We're paying more for programmers than almost anyone else in the industry!"

I can't speak to development specifically, but I looked into one of Tesla's devops offerings and I make slightly more for a mid-level engineer than they offer for a senior position. I also 'only' work 40-hour weeks and my cost of living is about 20-30% lower than there.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#589

Post by joe5644774 »

pretendscholar wrote: post #587
joe5644774 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking from first principle you can reason why Elon pushed for windows. Elon is a guy who wants to get done. On windows you get a linear output with time spend on it. On Linux the output is exponential. Relative to windows lot of time is required for entry on Linux.Since Elon is man of output he did not like to spent so much upfront time. Also he don't want to let go the control as he is micro manager.

This has to be a parody of a techbro.

Okay I will give another try. Elon was doing PhD and discontinued while he founded his first company in 90's. Since computers was not his main interest he used windows to the get the work done because windows is easier to learn and start getting output. From then on elon was crazy busy to do lot of other things and never got time to learn Linux . At the same time Elon wants control over everything which means at any point in time he wants to understand what the software is doing and even be involved in making changes to it if required first hand. Now with this background obviously Elon went with windows because he don't have to learn Linux and can use his already learnt windows knowledge.
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