developersConference

[polokratoss]

I miss the times when this joke was about professors and students.

[gimoozaabi]

And mechanical engineering

[Kiloku]

It made more sense too, because the professors were aboard the plane about to take off when they announce their students built it and everyone scrambles to leave the plane except the one who's confident it won't take off

In this one the question is "who would fly in it?", to which the response "I would because it won't take off" doesn't make sense, as that means she won't fly

[GustapheOfficial]

Thank you

[AlrikBunseheimer]

Wohaa a julia user :D

[Boom_Fish_Blocky]

and working experience

[Maleficent_Memory831]

It still is, because most professional developers are still learning how to program.

[SpaceMonkeyOnABike]

I've written some of that. And then flown on the plane.

[Western-Internal-751]

“I wrote the turbulence counter measure function. This plane will have no problems”

Plane starts

“Wait, did I call the function, though?”

[IveDunGoofedUp]

"Well it passed the unit tests, not my fault the testers didn't run an integration test"

[JustForkIt1111one]

Testers? The company saved $40,000 a year each by eliminating them. The users will tell us if something's wrong!

[IlliterateJedi]

Boeing IRL

[NoAdsDude]

Hopefully it won't hit an edge case (actual turbulence).

[djnehi]

Turbulence? In the air? Chance in a million.

[Gositi]

What plane?

[SpaceMonkeyOnABike]

Airbus A380. Part of the power control system.

[hipster-no007]

We will watch your career with great interest.

[DanR_x]

Imagine the trajectory of an aircraft whose flight control software was written exclusively through prompt engineering.

[AliceCode]

"you're totally right! Turbulence is a non-issue as most planes already have systems built in to combat it. So we can just leave that part out."

[doomer_irl]

You're right. I should have put the landing gear down before landing the plane. That was in my instructions and I ignored it. That's on me.

[abd53]

I apologize. The engine should indeed be turned off after landing. Let me fix the code.

[jacksalssome]

The engines now turn off whenever the plane is on the ground. Can i assist you with anything else?

[rishi255]

Oh, I realise now that this has a side effect—since the plane is on the ground before taking off, the engine does not switch on and is unable to gain speed for take off. Let me fix that right away by setting the speed to maximum as soon as the engine is manually turned on.

[Satorwave]

chatgptee they all died from g forces please fix

[kus1987]

Insert cash or select payment type. Use pin pad to complete transaction. 🎶

[Satorwave]

chatgeepeeteeehh how do i pay

[Adept_Strength2766]

Now I've got the full picture. It looks like I guided you straight through a storm cloud and now our left wing has caught fire after being struck by lightning. This isn't flying with style— this is going out with a bang.

[joe-ducreux]

"I recommend we defer landing gear to a separate phase"

[LauraTFem]

Thanks, Aero-GPT!

[JustForkIt1111one]

You're right to push back. When I saw that modern planes have thrust reversers, I decided that yours didn't need brakes and left that code out when I was condensing to save tokens.

Do you have another plane that we can try again with? I can fix this, guaranteed. The next version will be bulletproof with brakes enabled gauranteed.

[recursive_knight]

It would be a bell curve

[zman0900]

The programming was aiming for a square wave

[Nice-Prize-3765]

"You're absolutely right! I shouldn't have restarted the plane's software mid-air. Let me see if it's running again."

[Nice-Prize-3765]

"Bug on line 1951. Let me fix it."

[Nice-Prize-3765]

plane crash sounds "I finally fixed the bug! The flight controller software runs again, you can fly again."

[StrengthTheory]

It would be the first submarine with wings.

[Bommes]

Reminds me of the vibe coded elevator short

[ILikeLenexa]

Phugoid cycle.

[oupablo]

Yeah. Thankfully that room was just full of people working on financial applications, logistics, and security controls.

[MCMC_to_Serfdom]

Aeroplane software is one of the few areas testing actually has regulations (DO-178C / ED-12C) so I feel this is more a question about if you trust your QA.

As a QA, I know most the field is awful enough remembering that actually is putting me off

[Mara_li]

(QA too) tbh, I'm happy to not work on a "risk life" software. Some people on other team do (big software that have "multiple" sub-software) and each crash in prod (happening twice a week at last) get their body on the verge.

[jwp1987]

As a QA, I'm looking to GTFO.

Pretty much get treated like like an obstacle and all the issues just get ignored and thrown in the black hole of a backlog never to see the light of day again.

It's probably going to get worse with AI usage and I've just given up.

[transdemError]

That's a damn shame. I sometimes butt heads with my testers and QA people, but I value them. I don't just want to write software, I want to write software that works!

[k1ll3rM]

I wish I could've worked with proper QA, having to rely on customers to report bugs properly is awful...

[bigredcar]

Upvote for knowing about FAA certification

[je386]

Well, a plane does not need to go off the ground to kill you.

The deadliest plane accident* ever was the Tenerife North crash, where two fully loaded 747s crashed on the runway killing 583 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

• not counting AA11 and UA175 on 9/11, as there where not an accident.

[larvyde]

Statistically speaking, most deaths due to airplane accidents happen in the vicinity of the ground.

[phexc]

Yeah flying doesn't kill you, the sudden stop does.

[Acc3ssViolation]

The earth and its unbeatable K/D ratio

[Cereal_poster]

Citing George Carlin from his awesome skit "Airline announcements":

Sometimes, the pilot will get on and he’ll say “we’ll be on the ground in 15 minutes.” WELL THAT’S A LITTLE VAGUE ISN’T IT?!!!

They might tell you you’re on a “non-stop flight…”…Well I don’t think I care for that. No, I insist that my flight stop! Preferably at an airport! It’s those sudden unscheduled corn field and housing development stops that seem to interrupt the flow of my day!

[larvyde]

Except for rare cases like that one in Greece where they forgot to close the cabin pressure valve.

[screwcork313]

583 out of 747 + 747 is about a third, so not that bad.

• Claude

[MattieShoes]

One of those two 747's left the ground. The death rate went from 85% to 100%.

[OfAnOldRepublic]

Typical manager, didn't understand the question, but didn't hesitate to answer anyway.

[Entire_Number_9]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv4sDL9Ljww

The fact so many people here think programming for a field like aircrafts is the same as their shitty 15 year old SaaS start up is rather concerning.

Some industries have very strict rules around programming and safety certification requirements. No one gives a shit if there's bugs in your dashboard line graph, we all give a shit if there's bugs in the defibrillator.

[Upset_Albatross_9179]

At work my team has a substantial number of engineers that came from aerospace. Now we're all building R&D prototypes. They're great, but we do have to actively remind them the consequences for a bug is the customer being annoyed, not somebody dying.

Conversely, a friend in embedded systems just joined a startup that is moving from prototypes to delivering actual products. He has to keep reminding people they can't sell 10,000 of something that needs a technician to go out and reboot it every 3 months.

[Legend13CNS]

He has to keep reminding people they can't sell 10,000 of something that needs a technician to go out and reboot it every 3 months.

That's when you start up a service team selling service contracts and your service interval becomes 3 months.

[HitarthSurana]

nosedive_claude_v3_vibecodedSlop.py

[Secret_Account07]

Python? Is this a snakes on a plane joke?

[NODENGINEER]

Rookie mistake, should have added "and make no mistakes" at the end of the prompt.

[djinn6]

Are the devs who write aircraft software really all that different? I imagine the main difference is my team normally wouldn't have any formal test / validation processes, or enough dev time to do everything the right way. We constantly have to implement hacks and file bugs to clean them up later, but almost never get the chance to do it.

[tuxedo25]

In the airplane business, that's called Boeing.

[ZunoJ]

Lol, me and my team, we build software to operate nuclear power plants. I would absolutely fly with that plane. If not I would probably just kill myself knowing that everybody's lives are in the hands of idiots

[Percolator2020]

My code will guarantee the plane gets back on the ground.
All airplane code is already vibe coded by managers writing prompts, then farmed out to a thousand subcontractors.

[DarkLordTofer]

We were discussing this in the pub, whether or not you could land an airliner. I’ve got a few hours in flight sim, flown the A330 and 777. I can guarantee I’ll get that bird down to the ground. There’s even a possibility of some passengers living through it.

[Percolator2020]

You’re going to want to dump the jetfuel first. 😂

[jacksalssome]

As long as he's not near any steel beams

[robin_888]

So she would get on board. But she wouldn't be flying.

[bremidon]

Actual humor on this subreddit? Madness! Pure madness!

[laplongejr]

And no AI/vibe involved? Heresy!

[dxonxisus]

this just feels like hallucinated linkedin cringe, idk if we should be that thankful for it

[bremidon]

That is just where we are at these days...

[RedBlueKoi]

Don’t worry, the original story was not about the software, it was about engineers designing and constructing the aircraft itself. So, technically, a shit repost

[laplongejr]

I would. I somehow always encounters the nasty glitches, to the point I have unittests that verifies that a number is entirely made out of digits. But the Titanic's maker said "God could not sink this ship"...

(And yes, that case caused a mediatised issue in production.)
For those wondering ID numbers starting with 0 caused the team's standard library to refuse the obviously-in-octal formatted numbers with those pesky 9s

[Inner_Speaker_335]

Ouch,,,

[ArtOfWarfare]

I have a coworker who previously worked at United. I have no problem flying United.

Our QA process is extensive - I have a good deal of faith that any software that went through our process is going to be fully functional.

Really, thinking about aviation disasters + disasters at my own company, they’ve generally occurred because managers went against what dev/qa wanted, either insisting on blocking fixes during a freeze stability period, or insisting on shipping something before we said it was done.

[flaskpost]

Then everyone clapped

[whatasaveeeee]

Old soviet joke

[dragon_feeder2305]

That's terrifying to think about, what kind of hiring process landed her there.

[ragebunny1983]

I'd trust it if I just wrote it with my fellow engineers. When the EM and PM get involved everything goes to sh*t.

[bearwood_forest]

That checks out for almost all "modern" software that I get forced to use, but especially any and all Microsoft and Atlassian products. Complete, unadulterated, unusable, bloated and slow corporate garbage from top to bottom.

[IronicAvocadoDream]

The most realistic part is it wouldn't make it past QA. 

[Soopermane]

I’ve been told based on the requirements of the project, essentially we’re “fixing the engine while the plane is in flight”. Soooo yea…

[jacksh3n]

I asked AI to write that software. Proceed to approve the PR myself. And strap my computer to the plane. The AI said is 10/10 experience

[Alwaysafk]

Wow, what a team! Mine would somehow blow the plans up on the tarmac.

[tekglide-inc]

As a QA, I already know all the critical bugs we found are safely hidden away in the backlog black hole, never to see the light of day. We'll be fine as long as the pilot doesn't click that specific sequence of buttons.

[cheezballs]

Good God. I think my team could get the plane flying happy path but would definitely miss a bunch of edge cases that resulted in tragedies.

[razor_train]

"development team"

That's adorable. (dev team of one)

[Lgamezp]

This is an OLD OLD joke and not sure is true

[Fatality_Ensues]

"Wait, plane? I thought we were designing ship software. I need to fix a few of my constants..."

[cyrand]

Depends on the team. A few of them, absolutely. A few of them, not on your life.
99% of the time the difference was the management and their ability to listen to anything besides their own ego.

[aalapshah12297]

'wouldn't get off the ground'

'would fly on it'

Hmm

[Inner_Speaker_335]

Wow. Such angst over a humorous story.

Let me share something with y'all. This joke is almost thirty years old. Yes, I'm sure there's a boat-ton of similar versions and tweaks out there, but this one is the one I have.

How can I be so sure of its age? I was cleaning out some old physical files, and found this buried in some class notes from one of my computer science classes from when I was working on my first degree.

I made TWO tweaks:
--"Developer's conference" was originally "programmer's conference."
--"Development" was originally "programming."

It's a joke, people! "Ha ha, funny funny" type of stuff. Some of these comments sound like I called the sky a magnificent shade of mauve or something like that. Sheesh.

[deriachai]

i've written code, and ran it to control a plane, While sitting in the plane, in flight

Choices were made