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From: mjl@cs.rit.edu (Lutz Mike J)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.realtime
Subject: Re: Cost of Embedded Software
Message-ID: <1778@cs.rit.edu>
Date: 25 Jul 90 13:54:38 GMT
References: <30.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP>
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Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
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In article <30.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP> guthery@acw.UUCP (Scott Guthery) writes:
>I recently visited IBM's Clear Lake facility and, in particular, the
>On-Board Shuttle software effort.  This group has the distinction of
>being the only SEI Level 5 organization in existence.  They write in
>HAL and the code they cut costs about $3,000 per line.  That's about
>100 times the cost of run-of-the-mill code and IMHO worth every penny.

In Richard Feynman's scathing indictment of NASA's managerial and
engineering practices related to risk assessment and control--issued as
an appendix in the Challenger commission report--the one area he
singled out for praise was *software*. (A nice turn of events for those
of us who've taken potshots from traditional engineers years).  Am I
right in assuming that this software was developed at Clear Lake?

Mike Lutz
--
Mike Lutz	Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY
INTERNET:	mjl@cs.rit.edu