Re: software failure question

["Phaedrus" <phaedrusalt@hotmail.com>]

The only thing worse than a bunch of kangaroos firing SAMs at your
helicopter is a bunch of kangaroos throwing their balls at your chopper.
;-)

Phaedrus


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:YmpA6.1157$FY5.85643@www.newsranger.com...
> In article <4ZmA6.1693$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
>