Comment by octorian
7 years ago
This is only possible when the customer isn't completely disconnected from the user, there is real competition, and that competition is based on the product itself... Not the contract to buy/develop said product.
These reasons are also why so much defense-industry software is also a completely unusable mess. (that's an industry I used to work in) The software is written to satisfy a requirements checklist, nothing more, nothing less.
I worked in defence as well, and the requirements are not just a 'checklist'.
You're talking about safety, consistency. Lives - and geopoltical situations are at stake.
Do you know what it means if a guided missile goes wayward and crosses international borders?
Or the rescue helicoptor's GPS is unreliable?
Totally agree it's bogged down in bureaucracy ...
But those requirements are real.
You want complicated: work in 'manned space flight' probably the highest safety tolerances of anything. My god I don't even know how we get someone in space these days.
We use the Russian system because it's old school, probably less complicated and reliable.