Originally Posted by
Coagie
Ian W, I knew a programmer who worked for a company making smartcard compatible washing machines for laundromats.
That has nothing whatsoever to do with how safety-critical software is written for applications such as airliner flight control software, let alone how it's reviewed, approved and certificated. For all the whining here from (apparently) pilots about how many posters are clearly not pilots and therefore haven't a clue about flying these aircraft, it's equally clear that very few of those supposed pilots have a a clue about how their aircraft are designed and engineered. It isn't at the whim of some juvenile nerd, it is thoroughly reviewed and questioned by older and wiser heads at every stage of the design and development process, and there is very direct (and forceful) involvement of professional pilots at every stage, starting from the original design concepts.