[lug] Software complexity

[Landon Cox]

Some other interesting articles related to the topics discussed this  
week, especially related the life-critical safety software are here:

IEEE Spectrum: "How hard should it be to stop a runaway luxury car?"  http://spectrum.ieee.org/blog/computing/it/riskfactor/how-hard-should-it-be-to-stop-a-runaway-car

IEEE Spectrum: "This car runs on code" http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/advanced-cars/this-car-runs-on-code

A couple of the more interesting stats in the second article were:

F-22 raptor - 1.7 million lines of code
F-35 joint strike fighter - 5.7 million
Boeing 787 - 6.5 million
Premium class automobile - ~ 100 million

"..the radio and navigation system in the current S-class Mercedes- 
Benz requires over 20 million lines of code alone and that the car  
contains nearly as many ECUs as the new Airbus A380 (excluding the  
plane’s in-flight entertainment system). "

For today’s premium cars, ”the cost of software and electronics can  
reach 35 to 40 percent of the cost of a car,”

I think these articles are worth a read if you're interested in the  
trends of control software complexity - particularly writing software  
where lives are at stake.  I thought it astounding that a luxury auto  
was electronically as complex and programmatically more complex (as  
measured by lines of code) than a commercial jet.

Landon
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