
Penguins inspire a novel way of making sure code in smart cars does not crash - rusanu
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38637006
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fsargent
Can someone translate this for me? Why do penguins change how software
development works?

" _They forage in groups and have been observed to synchronise their dives to
get fish, " said Prof Papadopoulos. "They also have the ability to communicate
using vocalisations and possibly convey information about food resources._"

" _This solution has generic elements which can be abstracted and be used to
solve other problems, " he said, "such as determining the integrity of
software components needed to reach the high safety requirements of a modern
car._"

 _By mimicking penguin behaviour in a testing system which seeks the safest
ways to arrange code instead of shoals of fish, it becomes possible to slowly
zero in on the best way for that software to be structured._

... What?

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tetrep
And the article doesn't appear to have any links with further technical
detail. As given, I'd say it amounts to clickbait.

~~~
ape4
Or birdbait.

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fsargent
Relevant publication:
[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7397214/?reload=true](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7397214/?reload=true)
_Can aquatic flightless birds allocate Automotive Safety requirements?_

TL;DR: Penguins Search Optimisation Algorithm (PeSOA). PeSOA mimics the
collaborative hunting strategy of penguins, using the metaphor of oxygen
reserves as a search intensification operator. This allows the penguins to
preserve energy, consuming it only in areas of the search space that are rich
in good solutions. The performance of the approach is evaluated by applying it
to a benchmark hybrid braking system case study, demonstrating performance
that is an improvement to those reported in the literature.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Another nature-inspired take on optimization. For anyone curious, the
Wikipedia article below on Ant Optimization and its "Related" section have
detail on how these sorts of things get applied.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algori...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algorithms)

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mnw21cam
Scary fact of the day: There are about a million lines of code in the average
car, and more in connected ones.

If they have done _really_ well at debugging, they may only have 5 bugs per
kloc, so 5000 bugs.

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bennyg
Where does that "5 bugs per kloc" figure come from?

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mnw21cam
Google "bugs per line of code", and the top result says that the industry
average is 15 to 50 bugs per kloc. I'd expect (hope) people making cars do a
little better than that, hence a guestimate of 5.

