@thomasfuchs are there other gui-toolkits left, than chrome?

@thomasfuchs damn, the Soviet N1 lunar rocket is sounding safer by the day

@thomasfuchs nonononononooooo......

@thomasfuchs

The flight software of SpaceX is written in both C and C++.

https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/06/javascript-spacex-dragon/

@thomasfuchs
Sounds perfect! Quick, let’s load up all the billionaires right now! 😈

@thomasfuchs
> It runs some home-compiled version of Chromium and the UI is written in JavaScript.

What would you pick?

@thomasfuchs christ, these people really are just OceanGate For Up aren't they

@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io

But Mercury-punk looks so cool. If you ever had an excuse to design a space ship, why wouldn't every button, dial, switch, and lever look like it came off a 1950s assembly line?

@thomasfuchs To think of it another way: chrome/chromium is the world's most sufficiently tested software by millions if not billions of monkey users daily.

@thomasfuchs I work as a front-end developer... never, ever would I sit down in any vehicle where (critical) systems have anything to do with JS. The UI for the entertainment system? Maybe. But only if it physically runs on its own hardware.

@thomasfuchs I said something like that on the Birdshite when the first crewed flight happened, and all the stans came at me telling me I'm wrong.

@thomasfuchs @AndiBarth

Anyone else gettin "submarine made from badly cured carbonfiber steered with a gameconsole controller"-vibes ???

@thomasfuchs may introduce you to <waves at everything>

Well, except for the stuff that's still on windows95.

@thomasfuchs holy crap. it's gonna be a nightmare for them to certify the safety of the software to aerospace standards.

@thomasfuchs

@thomasfuchs The fact that web tech has come so far to reliably provide life support on a space capsule is actually incredibly tall achievement. It came about thanks to millions of developers using that tech, contributing to its development, debugging it, and using it daily, reporting bugs etc.
There is an argument in favour of it being more robust than bespoke piece of software done by several engineers with limited capacity for a specific piece of hardware that will get replaced next week

@thomasfuchs yeah it does give me some heebie-jeebies but...

Honestly it's probably the best debugged UI framework out there. Plus they have a few hardware buttons. And the thing mostly flies itself, and can fly itself completely, and the flight control software is not in JavaScript, so on some level the UI is "make the humans feel better".

But yeah it's weird. Hard to square my feelings about the whole thing, incl. the privatization of knowledge, space pollution, management, etc

@thomasfuchs @drahardja on the topic of reliable UI I recommend DVUI.

@thomasfuchs Err
Network changed

@siracusa

@thomasfuchs So if I’m reading this right:

Between submersibles that dive to bone-crushing depths using Xbox controllers connected to the metal tube using Bluetooth, and now rockets that carry humans into orbit using home compiled Chromium with a JavaScript UI, the message I’m getting is that we trust our most extreme human exploration missions to technology that can best be described as “finicky”.

@thomasfuchs I’m sure it’s just fine and the billionaire space tourists shouldn’t worry at all! :blobcatthinksmart:

@thomasfuchs oops someone forgot to renew the capsule's SSL cert, now we're all gonna die

@thomasfuchs
"We determined the loss of telemetry data was caused by the flight crew rejecting the use of tracking cookies."

@thomasfuchs once again reinforcing my conviction to only ever travel to space in a Soyuz capsule

@thomasfuchs Is there a Playstation controller in the mix somewhere?

@thomasfuchs

I guess that means a power supply, computer, OS, X server, touch screen, web server, web browser, and all the backend I/O is still more reliable than a physical switch with a molly guard.

Or maybe, you know: move fast, break things.

Even people if necessary.

To me, that's the most significant difference between NASA and private endeavors. And it's shocking how many people are okay with it.

@thomasfuchs @leyrer JWST also runs JavaScripts https://jwst.nasa.gov/resources/ISIMmanuscript.pdf

@thomasfuchs Don't forget "continuous integration" and the worship of "feature velocity" and QA dismissed as "throwing it over the wall": This stuff isn't really designed and tested. I'm sure they earnestly tell themselves they design and test things, but I don't believe it is very thorough.

@thomasfuchs we are doomed as a species

@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io i'd rather use a Xbox controller then

@thomasfuchs including the not-for-production-use crypto library that lacks support for elliptic curves?

@thomasfuchs I love JavaScript, I write it for a living. But good lord these important systems should be several orders of magnitude simpler. Absolutely no reason for it to be running chromium with a web app...

@thomasfuchs
They should try with RHEL for some reason 🙈
#iss 🧑‍🚀

@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io you ✨ don't ✨ understand ✨ open ✨ source 🚀 went 👾 to 🌠 space 🤩
/i'm sorry/