EE's Going Extinct?

[anorlunda]

Bad software, and people die

Bad hardware and people die too. Think of the power grids, overstrained to the limits this summer.

 

[CrysPhys]

Bad hardware and people die too. Think of the power grids, overstrained to the limits this summer.

Of course. But I was responding to Vanadium 50's post that implied that the output of CS guys are somehow less critical than the output of engineers. That's simply not true in this age of computer controlled equipment. Whether a plane crashes because a wing falls off, or whether a plane crashes because the flight control software fails, the end result is the same ... a lot of dead bodies.

 

[anorlunda]

That's simply not true in this age of computer controlled equipment.

It has always been true since the dawn of computing. Think of Turing and the Enigma code. Think of WWII fire control computers.

 

[CrysPhys]

It has always been true since the dawn of computing. Think of Turing and the Enigma code. Think of WWII fire control computers.

But computer-controlled equipment is far more pervasive in far more aspects of our everyday lives than back then.

 

[yungman]

But software increasingly is integral to engineering. Bad software, and people die (Boeing 737 MAX, autos with various degrees of software control, ...).

Most of the problem in modern equipment are software problem. I designed plenty of computer control hardware, they are very straight forward. Nobody do logic design like in the older days. Everything contains in one or two big IC(be it MPU or FPGA) which have software programs to run the whole thing. You really cannot go too wrong. It's what's inside those big chip that is the problem...Software. Even FPGA is done by programming.

The new stuffs are getting so bad now a days, never mind the Boeing 737, just everyday electronics in cars, tv boxes, printers are just bad.

We bought a car in 2018 because we have two older ones of same brand and they are trouble free. That stupid car spent at least a month total in the first 1/2 year in the dealer. Everything was computer problem, radio kept changing, all of a sudden lost control on the center console. I had to pull the car over, pull it in PARK, then everything came back. Got better after they updated the software a few times. They never manage to get the garage remote working at all, they even send people over to work on it and still not managed to make it work.

I knew better to NOT buying the lane correction and auto breaking already. In fact it's so hard to find one without all the fancy stuffs that I had to order the car without those. Imagine if those acts up!

We have a rental business, you don't even know how many printers and scanners we went through, slow, inconsistent. Every time there's a software update, problem comes. Those are not cheap all-in-one, we got the small business type. Both Canon and HP are just as bad.

Then the Direct TV control, they are really a joke. It's so flaky.

The problem is what I described before. Program always call on other modules written by someone else to safe time, you use different modules from different people/company. Later on when you have to update the program, those people/company that wrote those might not be around, then you have to use stuffs from different people to patch the program. Unless you know all the in and out of the old stuff, you might run into problem.

Another thing that is very critical. Program is running line by line, but hardware is real time. You can accidentally create "raise" condition in hardware that the person doing the programming has no idea that can happen. This is PARTICULARLY bad in FPGA programming. Like resetting a D-flipflop.
eg. Reset = A & B. So it only reset when both A and B are 1. You write the program thinking this is ok. BUT in real life, there can be raise condition. Say B occasionally goes high before A goes low. You create a short glitch that sometimes reset the FF. This is SUCH A HUGE PROBLEM. Those that program the FPGA have no idea because it is logical, they don't know this is real time and raise condition happens.

When I was the manager, we contracted out to program one FPGA, I ended up had to read the program line by line to debug it and this was one of those! After I retired, I knew a friend that is in high position in Lockheed Martin, we went to the same gym and saw each other all the time. One time he was complaining about those programmer and FPGA. I those him what happened about the D-FF, He offered me a job on the spot! Of cause I politely decline. But you can see these are HUGE problem.

Seems like software people are living in their own world. Also it doesn't help that marketing people want things to be too fancy instead of reliability. I have a 2014 SUV I love, but it's getting old, I want to buy a new one. BUT I truly don't know what to buy after the experience of the 2018 car. None of the problem is deadly, but still......

They really need to make it a requirement for CS major that goes into firmware to study digital logic design, understand timing diagram and MPU circuit design.

 

[berkeman]

EE's Going Extinct

Well, "extinct" is sort of strictly true, because there will soon be no more EEs. But on the other hand, we are left with...

https://me.me/i/engineering-instagram-engineers-evolution-🚀😎-evolution-182748

 

[Vanadium 50]

Most of the problem in modern equipment are software problem.

Please provide evidence for this statement. One car that acted flaky even after they reprogrammed it is not evidence for "most", especially if updating the software didn't fix the problem. On the contrary, evidence that it was software would be an update fixing the problem. (Further, if identical cars running identical software do not exhibit the same symptoms, it's hard to blame it entirely on software)

"raise" condition

You mean "race condition." If you want to claim expertise in a field, it's helpful to get your facts right.

Finally, you have well and truly derailed this thread.

 

[yungman]

Please provide evidence for this statement. One car that acted flaky even after they reprogrammed it is not evidence for "most", especially if updating the software didn't fix the problem. On the contrary, evidence thgat it was software would be an update fixing the problem. (Further, if identical cars running identical software do not exhibit the same symptoms, it's hard to blame it entirely on software)


You mean "race condition." If you want to claim expertise in a field, it's helpful to get your facts right.

Finally, you have well and truly derailed this thread.

Well, that's my experience on different new equipment I bought. About the car, we went to two different dealers, they could not fix it. What make you think other identical cars don't have problem? You read consumer report? Not only my particular car rated poorly, a lot of the very reliable brands have in car electronics problems now. Look at the new Lexus LS, that was supposed to be very reliable, the rating on electronics is not good. Do the research.

Yes, don't pick on my spelling. That is my experience. I've been in the field for 30 years.

BTW, I did not just came here to take time from you guys on C++only, I had been contributing to EE part a lot 10+ years ago. How do you think I racked up 5000 posts AND I did not ask thousands of questions in C++. Go look back the history. It cuts both ways. We all have our own free will to contribute our own time to help or not to. This is a forum, everyone can join or care to respond. I better stop before I offend other people that is so graceful and helped me. This is towards YOU only.

 

[berkeman]

El thread-o es el locked-o temporarimente.

I think the OP question has been addressed pretty well from several different perspectives, so this thread can remain closed now. Thanks for the contributions, all.