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Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

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Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#81

Post by samtho »

JohnFen wrote: post #23
warner25 wrote: post #22

It seems like there are almost daily HN front page items about aviation, and a lot of pilots in the comments. I've wondered about the reasons for such an overlap in interests among people here. I fit this myself: I grew up playing flight simulators, studied computer science as an undergrad, was a military helicopter pilot for a while, and then went to grad school for computer science. Along the way, I've personally m…

> I've wondered about the reasons for such an overlap in interests among people here. I bet that a large part of why is that people here tend to have reasonably high incomes, and flying is an expensive hobby. I'm sure that flying would be an incredibly popular hobby across all demographics if it were affordable.

Flying was not as expensive as I thought especially since I found a school that lets you pay by the lesson. Once you got your 40 hours, you can, without much restriction, fly general aviation aircraft (that you are type-rated on) wherever you want in the US at least. A non club price puts a Cessna at about $110-$160/hr wet (time engine is on, 100LL Avgas included). Expensive, but not so out of reach.

The thing you need to be rich in is free time. You can have all the money in the world but if you don’t have the time to put in, you’re not getting into this hobby.

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#82

Post by sokoloff »

bombcar wrote: post #39
tialaramex wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the sadder reasons why scheduled aviation is so safe. When flying planes is your job, why would you ever push your luck? I feel so tired, that storm looks pretty nasty, or the maintenance guy seemed like he had no idea why it's doing that - fuck it, we're not going, get the airline to put you on another plane if there is one, otherwise get them to pay for your hotel, I'm not flying anywhere today. One…

My CFI said "graveyards are full of people the world couldn't do without, it can wait a day" - important to remember for many things, if you start pushing your luck it'll eventually push back.

“NTSB investigators usually wear sunglasses.”

Meaning that will likely be investigating your weather accident in the sunshine, so you could just wait a short while and fly in that good weather rather than crashing right now.

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#83

Post by karmelapple »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #3

This article isn't complete without mentioning DO-178C: Design guidance for aviation software development.

And the different levels therein can help you think about your own systems, even if someone won’t crash a plane if your software fails.

A large passenger aircraft does not solely consist of Level A software. There’s plenty of not-flight-safety-critical software on any airplane you ride as a civilian passenger, but there is some Level A software that could cause the worst consequences if it fails.

Think about what pieces of your software are critical to your company/team’s mission, and which aren’t so bad if they fail. Not every line of code you write, or system you build, will wreak havoc on your company’s primary mission.

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#84

Post by RugnirViking »

gbacon wrote: post #13

Fun to consider as both a computer scientist and a CFI. Instrument training in FAA-land requires learners to understand the five hazardous attitudes: anti-authority ("the rules don't apply to me"), impulsivity ("gotta do something now! ), invulnerability ("I can get away with it"), macho ("watch this!"), and resignation ("I can't do anything to stop the inevitable"). Although the stakes are different, they have appli…

I feel like when applied to software the "invulnerability" point needs to be tweaked a little, the others are good. Perhaps something more towards apathy "it does't matter/it isn't worth fixing". It's the same end result (the concequences won't track back to me), but it's much more likely to be true in software development and yet is still a hazardous attitude

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#85

Post by bombcar »

sokoloff wrote: post #82
bombcar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My CFI said "graveyards are full of people the world couldn't do without, it can wait a day" - important to remember for many things, if you start pushing your luck it'll eventually push back.

“NTSB investigators usually wear sunglasses.” Meaning that will likely be investigating your weather accident in the sunshine, so you could just wait a short while and fly in that good weather rather than crashing right now.

"The problem with scud running is it often works" - this is really important because if dangerous things killed everyone who tried them, nobody would try them anymore.

But if you put yourself in a precarious position, eventually it will catch up to you, and you HAVE to force yourself to avoid those positions, no matter how tempting.

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#86

Post by sokoloff »

bombcar wrote: post #85
sokoloff wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“NTSB investigators usually wear sunglasses.” Meaning that will likely be investigating your weather accident in the sunshine, so you could just wait a short while and fly in that good weather rather than crashing right now.

"The problem with scud running is it often works" - this is really important because if dangerous things killed everyone who tried them, nobody would try them anymore. But if you put yourself in a precarious position, eventually it will catch up to you, and you HAVE to force yourself to avoid those positions, no matter how tempting.

“We can wait and get there late, or leave now and it’ll take the rest of our lives to get there…”

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#87

Post by expertentipp »

perilunar wrote: post #75
gbacon wrote: post #13

Fun to consider as both a computer scientist and a CFI. Instrument training in FAA-land requires learners to understand the five hazardous attitudes: anti-authority ("the rules don't apply to me"), impulsivity ("gotta do something now! ), invulnerability ("I can get away with it"), macho ("watch this!"), and resignation ("I can't do anything to stop the inevitable"). Although the stakes are different, they have appli…

> anti-authority ("the rules don't apply to me") Of course in Aviation the 'authorities' are usually rational and fair. In many other areas of life they are neither, and are incompetent to boot. Being anti-authority is justified in such cases. i.e. there is a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

Software industry prides itself with low barrier to entry and ageism is absolutely the case. Then in workplace the authorities are things like "Airbnb code guidelines", blog posts (or even tweets!) by evangelists sponsored by Google/Amazon/Meta, or design mockups by designer who hates checkboxes.

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#88

Post by bombcar »

sokoloff wrote: post #86
bombcar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem with scud running is it often works" - this is really important because if dangerous things killed everyone who tried them, nobody would try them anymore. But if you put yourself in a precarious position, eventually it will catch up to you, and you HAVE to force yourself to avoid those positions, no matter how tempting.

“We can wait and get there late, or leave now and it’ll take the rest of our lives to get there…”

"Wait and late or now and plow" was mine :)

I wonder if CFIs could basically be replaced by ChatGPT making pithy statements about "don't fly into weather you idiots". Probably too polite, though.

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#89

Post by syndicatedjelly »

maccard wrote: post #46
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a certain level of arrogance that comes from the people who don’t work on safety critical stuff, that we could all do without

Eh. I make video games. _Everything_ in games is a trade-off. There are areas of my code that are bulletproof, well tested, fuzzex and rock solid. There are parts of it (running in games people play, a lot) that will whiff if you squint too hard at it. Deciding when to employ the second technique is a very powerful skill, and knowing what corners to cut can result in software or experiences that handle the golden pat…

I agree, and appreciate it when the discussion at least evolves out of "ready fire aim" and moves to rational talks about balance and tradeoffs. I wish more software engineers learned about risk management and bayesian probability.

Re: Trying to become a better developer by learning more about aviation

#90

Post by syndicatedjelly »

SoftTalker wrote: post #65
ryandrake wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought “well, nobody’s gonna die” is a crappy attitude for any professional developer. We should care about quality and getting it right, regardless of the stakes. QA: ”Look, if that integer overflows here, your software is going to fail.” Dev: “Well, it’s a cooking recipe app. Nobody’s gonna die!” How low of an opinion you must have of your own profession if you’re going to excuse yourself this way!

Have you ever written avionics-grade software? If all software had to be written to that standard, we'd have a lot less of it. That might be a good thing I guess, but recipe apps probably wouldn't make the cut.

Not everything needs to be written at that level, but I've found that most programmers think they can do risk assessment on the back of a napkin and 'assume' their crappy little music player has 0 safety risk just because they thought about it really hard for 5 minutes. See the earlier comment in this tree about how audio players DO have a safety element to them.
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