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[–] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

To be fair, an Ariane 5 rocket failed because of a float being treated as a double, or something similar. I don't remember the details, but what makes it embarrassing is that it was the result of recycling code from Ariane 4.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I don't think recycling code is embarrassing? No-one can be expected to write a new codebase from scratch for every new product or machine. That would be worse than building on top of a solid foundation.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    It isn't. Never testing that it's compatible with the new hardware platform is.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago

    Having read up on it quickly, the real issue was with a lack of tests and failure handling, so you're not wrong.
    Apparently this code wasn't even necessary to run after liftoff, yet it caused the self-destruct.
    Crazy.

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