A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by tirant on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @07:49AM (#9569327)

I am not surprised at all. There are a lot of contractors involved in the development of the software for the A400M, and they are basically competing for price and employing undergraduates making below €18K/year, which they replace every few months due to burnouts and bad working conditions. Projects get continuously delayed, and key people barely stay more than a couple of years.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by bottled_poe on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:25AM (#9569506)

Have you been involved with the engineering of aircraft control systems, or are you just speculating?

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by mdaverveldt on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:40AM (#9569584)

I can confirm similar situations for other EU IT projects. Currently, I am a contractor working on the IT side for the Galileo Satellite System. Although the IT consulting company that I work for pays significantly better then the 18K mentioned (25K-30K range) the quality of the work that is delivered is terrible. The mentioned salary is for graduate engineers.

The attrition rate is terrible and its impossible to keep people who have knowledge of the program on board.

I would guess that 30-50% of our team are inexperienced java software engineers with less then 5 years of working experience. Around 100 people work on our project but there are probably 3-5 people who still have a clear picture of how everything is working / supposed to work.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by scrollaway on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:48AM (#9569623)

Uh, there's a massive difference between contracting on satellite systems and contracting on civil aviation systems.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by colechristensen on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @09:21AM (#9569801)

In America such things are more often done by DoD contractors and they are paid well and space systems are more tightly controlled than civil aviation.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by tirant on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @10:04AM (#9570090)

I was not speculating. I've been working in one of the contractors. The same situation applies to Railway Control Systems and other Telecommunication Infrastructures.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by agumonkey on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @09:05AM (#9569695)

It confirms what I've seen https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9569636

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by yitchelle on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @09:05AM (#9569699)

> ...and they are basically competing for price...

and if the contractors are from India, the competition does not stop after the contract have been awarded. During the execution of the project, the competitive behavior will continue. One contracting firm will compete with an aim to reduced the tasks/responsibility of the other contracting firm, thus (or hoping to) capturing more contracting hours. Very vicious and dangerous..

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by jclure on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @10:47AM (#9576659)

This would not be the case if they invested in automated (Unit Test) tools which would boost productivity dramatically and allow automated regression testing throughout the project life cycle.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by hydrogen18 on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:07AM (#9569410)

I thought that 'lowest bidder wins' was an American phenomenon? Certainly, Boeing and others have figured out how to game the system here in the states and abroad.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by nier on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:40AM (#9569580)

My german architect clients say: “Ze lowest bidder wins to start ze project with ze highest bidder’s plans.” Which is funny when you squint enough to ignore the tragedy.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by VMG on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:18AM (#9569468)

> I thought that 'lowest bidder wins' was an American phenomenon?

Why should it be?

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by happyscrappy on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:52AM (#9569641)

Because Europe cares about people not money, like in Greece.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by jmnicolas on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @09:35AM (#9576166)

I'm European ... and I upvoted you. They sold us the EU as a big brotherhood of the European people, instead we got a giant bureaucracy at the service of big corpo.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by madez on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:59AM (#9569670)

Oh, the irony, bitter - just like medicine.

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by driverdan on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @08:26AM (#9569513)

Source?

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Re:A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues by pfortuny on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @10:24AM (#9570244)

Looks like the source is himself.

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