Posts by Bsil

The Smithsonian is doomed.

I hate these kind of mandates "For safety and security". I remember, having to update a company product for the military based on the "All Army systems running windows must use Windows 7". I had nothng to do with the original project, but all it really did was run the hardware for an emergency engine shut off button on a touchscreen in a jet engine test cell. While I questioned the original product's use of Windows XP to run a touchscreen and at least it was not networked, I really really questioned the requirement to just update without changes to windows 7, not to use a directly embedded baremetal custom software which we did for aircraft parts, but instead, no. Just upgrade it and make people log in like the mandate requires. Yes. Somehow they think it made it safer to require you to login to your touchscreen, and pray nobody turns on the power management or leaves the screensaver going, so you can let it boot up the touchscreen, that let's you hit the all stop emergency shutdown button. It did require a change. Another keyboard was added so the user could log into the screen for the "button" embedded into the wall. The whole project hurt my pride as a developer so much to do, when when a government contract is that specific, you have no room to make it make sense. Here's what I have to say to all this. Computer science is sometimes an art, which is why it's often taught in the Arts and Sciences category. It's is a functional art blending lots of what probably were bad ideas with really good ones to manage the risk and just, make, it, work. Forget the project I just mentioned, except that's how the maintainers are going to asked to "fix" these products. What really worries me is that sometimes the fact they pulled off the requirements at all in that hardware makes it a masterpiece for the time and money they were given to do it and resources and practices used at the time. Have you ever been given 90 days to have a product go from inception to full factory runoff coordinating mechanics and passing of an FAA code audit and new project management system, every single line of code having to match to a requirement in the requirements document made on inception and tested in the test plan, and fully QA tested with each test performed to prove use and all requirements met? And then being placed in 50 military helicopters and not needing updates? Going back and "fixing" programs does not acknowledge everything that made those programs legal to be used on an aircraft in the first place, nor does it pay to do them again. Any change invalidates the product, requiring recertification. But here's the point: This is like going through the Smithsonian and redoing all the art pieces because some used lead paint, and asking them to redo it all in crayon, to make it more "safe" for the workers. It's a foolish endeavor, because those curators are not the original artists, may not understand the techniques or skill needed to remake them and the paintings were safe enough for their original intent, to have on the wall producing a specific textured visual and emotional effect, so long as they didn't each the paint chips that fell off on the floor. And like it always is, you can't get the same colors of red without using lead or mercury. The colors are physical properties of the elements themselves. And they're going to complain it's not the same, eventually ending in mandating production of crayon colors made in lead and mercury so they can remake the art correctly, poisoning children who buy these new crayons and destroying the point of even having safe crayons in the first place. To train the little toddlers that want to make art too and not kill them while doing it. Just make a new project to replace the old one, with actual proper requirements, and make your new language baby a requirement. If you are convincing enough and this isn't just whining about people saying no, because you didn't understand why they're saying no, then they'll get approved to be paid for all over again with real requirements.