From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,da26f7e99d6cfcf3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-04-09 14:00:09 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!newsranger.com!www.newsranger.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: Ted Dennison Sender: usenet@www.newsranger.com References: <9Pxz6.992$ix4.198187@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com> <4ZmA6.1693$Ak1.181271@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Subject: Re: software failure question Message-ID: Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 20:57:28 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.208.22.130 X-Complaints-To: abuse@newsranger.com X-Trace: www.newsranger.com 986849848 209.208.22.130 (Mon, 09 Apr 2001 16:57:28 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 16:57:28 EDT Organization: http://www.newsranger.com Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:6675 Date: 2001-04-09T20:57:28+00:00 List-Id: In article <4ZmA6.1693$Ak1.181271@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, Phaedrus says... > >I'm reminded of another famous software failure, that may or >may not be an urban legend: >According to the story, when programming a helicopter simulation >for the Australian military, someone noticed that they didn't have >any kangaroos. Rather than write a whole bunch of new code to >simulate them, they just derived a new subclass from the class that >they used to simulate the ground troops. >When they flew the new version of the simulation, the kangaroos >scattered just as expected when the helicopter flew over the hill. >But imagine their surprise when the 'roos came back and started >firing at the chopper with surface-to-air missiles! I did some investigation on that one when it first made the rounds a couple of years ago. Apparently its mostly true, except that they also didn't have a model for the SAMs, so it used the default model, which was multicolored beach-balls. :-) --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com