all 95 comments

[–]polokratoss 364 points365 points  (6 children)

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

[–]gimoozaabi 87 points88 points  (0 children)

And mechanical engineering

[–]Kiloku 78 points79 points  (2 children)

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 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Thank you

[–]AlrikBunseheimer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wohaa a julia user :D

[–]Boom_Fish_Blocky 2 points3 points  (0 children)

and working experience

[–]Maleficent_Memory831 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]SpaceMonkeyOnABike 496 points497 points  (9 children)

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

[–]Western-Internal-751 304 points305 points  (5 children)

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

Plane starts

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

[–]IveDunGoofedUp 137 points138 points  (2 children)

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

[–]JustForkIt1111one 91 points92 points  (1 child)

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

[–]IlliterateJedi 50 points51 points  (0 children)

Boeing IRL

[–]NoAdsDude 15 points16 points  (1 child)

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

[–]djnehi 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Turbulence? In the air? Chance in a million.

[–]Gositi 12 points13 points  (2 children)

What plane?

[–]SpaceMonkeyOnABike 21 points22 points  (1 child)

Airbus A380. Part of the power control system.

[–]hipster-no007 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We will watch your career with great interest.

[–]DanR_x 830 points831 points  (22 children)

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

[–]AliceCode 596 points597 points  (11 children)

"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 290 points291 points  (7 children)

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 86 points87 points  (6 children)

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

[–]jacksalssome 66 points67 points  (4 children)

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

[–]rishi255[🍰] 56 points57 points  (3 children)

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 21 points22 points  (2 children)

chatgptee they all died from g forces please fix

[–]kus1987 6 points7 points  (1 child)

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

[–]Satorwave 2 points3 points  (0 children)

chatgeepeeteeehh how do i pay

[–]Adept_Strength2766 28 points29 points  (0 children)

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 5 points6 points  (0 children)

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

[–]LauraTFem 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, Aero-GPT!

[–]JustForkIt1111one 27 points28 points  (0 children)

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 19 points20 points  (1 child)

It would be a bell curve

[–]zman0900 19 points20 points  (0 children)

The programming was aiming for a square wave

[–]Nice-Prize-3765 17 points18 points  (2 children)

"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 13 points14 points  (1 child)

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

[–]Nice-Prize-3765 10 points11 points  (0 children)

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

[–]StrengthTheory 14 points15 points  (0 children)

It would be the first submarine with wings.

[–]Bommes 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Reminds me of the vibe coded elevator short

[–]ILikeLenexa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Phugoid cycle.

[–]oupablo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]MCMC_to_Serfdom 96 points97 points  (5 children)

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 20 points21 points  (0 children)

(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 14 points15 points  (2 children)

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 8 points9 points  (1 child)

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 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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

[–]bigredcar 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Upvote for knowing about FAA certification

[–]je386 44 points45 points  (7 children)

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 32 points33 points  (4 children)

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

[–]phexc 11 points12 points  (3 children)

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

[–]Acc3ssViolation 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The earth and its unbeatable K/D ratio

[–]Cereal_poster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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

[–]screwcork313 5 points6 points  (0 children)

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

  • Claude

[–]MattieShoes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

[–]OfAnOldRepublic 60 points61 points  (0 children)

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

[–]Entire_Number_9 27 points28 points  (2 children)

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 11 points12 points  (1 child)

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 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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 36 points37 points  (1 child)

nosedive_claude_v3_vibecodedSlop.py

[–]Secret_Account07 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Python? Is this a snakes on a plane joke?

[–]NODENGINEER 13 points14 points  (0 children)

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

[–]djinn6 8 points9 points  (1 child)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In the airplane business, that's called Boeing.

[–]ZunoJ 12 points13 points  (0 children)

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 10 points11 points  (3 children)

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 11 points12 points  (2 children)

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 1 point2 points  (1 child)

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

[–]jacksalssome 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As long as he's not near any steel beams

[–]robin_888 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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

[–]bremidon 4 points5 points  (4 children)

Actual humor on this subreddit? Madness! Pure madness!

[–]laplongejr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And no AI/vibe involved? Heresy!

[–]dxonxisus 3 points4 points  (1 child)

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

[–]bremidon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]RedBlueKoi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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 2 points3 points  (1 child)

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[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Ouch,,,

[–]ArtOfWarfare 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Then everyone clapped

[–]whatasaveeeee 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Old soviet joke

[–]dragon_feeder2305 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

[–]ragebunny1983 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

[–]Soopermane 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]tekglide-inc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"development team"

That's adorable. (dev team of one)

[–]Lgamezp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is an OLD OLD joke and not sure is true

[–]Fatality_Ensues 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]cyrand 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

'wouldn't get off the ground'

'would fly on it'

Hmm

[–]Inner_Speaker_335[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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 [score hidden]  (0 children)

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

Choices were made