Speculate: what the heck happened to Chris Lattner?

[neroden]

Claiming that Tesla has no proper revision or coding practices is silly.

All evidence is that Tesla has no proper revision or coding practices. Longtime programmer here. You don't get regressions like Tesla has unless you have no proper revision or coding practices. You don't *pirate Linux* unless you have no proper regression or coding practices. It has all the hallmarks of the worst sort of "cowboy programming".

 

[neroden]

Elon is a self learned programmer...I wonder how that influences his expectations

I am too, but I also learned how to use bug tracking systems, set up testcases, do regression testing...

 

[neroden]

Any way back on topic. Why do I think Chris left, because he was brought in to fix a floundering project of huge importance, that was over promised and undeliverable in the timescales. Clearly they had a problem.

Him mentioning staff attrition is interesting to me. I've had to get involved in some high profile failing projects, and no matter what you do technically people want to distance themselves. They go into self protection mode and the atmosphere gets really toxic. People start blaming each other, especially cross departments. Ultimately people then leave.

To break what can turn into such a vicious circle, you need a really strong leader constantly fighting political battles while trying to keep your team all still rowing along. He was a good fit in this regard IMHO.

The fact he's being followed out the door by a number of other fairly senior team members really doesn't bode well

Yeech. Yeah, I think this is a sign that Tesla's Autopilot program is basically dead. The software dev team is looking like an increasing disaster.

Musk, if you're listening (though I know you're not)... I can at least get the damn media player working and get rid of your race conditions. The condition: you give me a free hand to restructure processes, and understand that it takes months. First step is to set up a test protocol and bug tracker, which you clearly don't have, or they aren't working. My credentials include rewriting the configuration files for GCC. There's a culture among GCC developers which requires that any change is accompanied by testcases to validate the feature or prevent the bug from recurring... I hope Tesla has a "virtual touchscreen input" harness which can feed scripted taps into the software, but I'm betting they don't. (And similarly for the other hardware inputs.)

 

[supratachophobia]

Hmm. So Musk doesn't understand the degree to which processes are essential, which is very stupid of him. He'll never make it to Mars with that attitude.

Correction, he'll make it to Mars, but he'll never make it back. But I doubt he wants to make it back. I think he'll retire there. And I hope to pass the time, he has to listen to some version of the media player in the Tesla. The same play order over and over and over and over.....

 

[supratachophobia]

Yeech. Yeah, I think this is a sign that Tesla's Autopilot program is basically dead. The software dev team is looking like an increasing disaster.

Musk, if you're listening (though I know you're not)... I can at least get the damn media player working and get rid of your race conditions. The condition: you give me a free hand to restructure processes, and understand that it takes months. First step is to set up a test protocol and bug tracker, which you clearly don't have, or they aren't working. My credentials include rewriting the configuration files for GCC. There's a culture among GCC developers which requires that any change is accompanied by testcases to validate the feature or prevent the bug from recurring... I hope Tesla has a "virtual touchscreen input" harness which can feed scripted taps into the software, but I'm betting they don't. (And similarly for the other hardware inputs.)

Tag John McNeil in posts like those. He does listen and he does read them. I would hope that someone with as long a post history as yourself would at least get a consideration (maybe not a direct response) when doing so.

 

[verygreen]

Yeech. Yeah, I think this is a sign that Tesla's Autopilot program is basically dead. The software dev team is looking like an increasing disaster.

Musk, if you're listening (though I know you're not)... I can at least get the damn media player working and get rid of your race conditions. The condition: you give me a free hand to restructure processes, and understand that it takes months. First step is to set up a test protocol and bug tracker, which you clearly don't have, or they aren't working. My credentials include rewriting the configuration files for GCC. There's a culture among GCC developers which requires that any change is accompanied by testcases to validate the feature or prevent the bug from recurring... I hope Tesla has a "virtual touchscreen input" harness which can feed scripted taps into the software, but I'm betting they don't. (And similarly for the other hardware inputs.)

I think it's pretty much established by this time that Tesla is anti-process from the very top. They had plenty of people that could reorganize their process and it did not happen beyond token signs like a bugracker (I would guess jira from what we see in the code), revision control (git), centralized build servers (some sort of jenkins setup if I had to guess).
Yet all the reoccuring regressions show that there's no real regression testing in place (and it does slow pace of your release schedule).

I am not sure why you think software team is "increasing" disaster, though (but I have not been watching it long enough), seems to be a steady disaster to me

 

[McRat]

Anyone who is anti-process, does not understand how implement processes, how to do continuous improvement, and has no idea how to most effectively resolve a recurring defect.

Tip - It's not just firing people. That is not a solution, it's an excuse for poor mgmt skills and planning.

 

[dhanson865]

Chris should have been suspicious when his door name tag was a Post-It note.

Ha, you thought he got a door!

Seriously even Elon doesn't get an office. He's said repeatedly that no one gets an office.

 

[verygreen]

Seriously even Elon doesn't get an office. He's said repeatedly that no one gets an office.

Yay work from home! right? right?!