

7 Person Year Application Rewritten in 2 Person Months - startupcrazy
http://www.metromodemedia.com/blogs/posts/TMeloche2037.aspx
A lone programmer rewrites an entire project in 2 months. It uses executable specifications. It is thrown away because nobody else understands it. (LISP, YACC. or something else?)
======
axiom
He's talking about SCADA (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA>)

Sounds really impressive. If anyone has ever worked with PLCs you know what a
nightmare it is to interface with them and deal with their primitve data
types. Not to mention programming them in ladder logic (yeah, most industrial
machines are still programmed in ladder logic straight from the 1800s.)

So he's not kidding, this is a BIG deal.

~~~
imsteve
I hate, no I HATE that language...

------
mynameishere
I thought for sure this would mention another "innovation" that came out of
Chrysler, "Extreme Programming":

[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WasChryslerComprehensiveCompensationS...](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WasChryslerComprehensiveCompensationSuccess)

Short story: Chrylser had been trying to unify its various systems and
subsystems for payroll and had failed and failed. Eventually, a group of
consultants were brought in who had invented a particular agile technique,
extreme-programming. Of course, the project failed, but that didn't keep the
consultants from spreading the XP word throughout the world.

~~~
startupcrazy
Two of my developers were on the original XP team at Chrysler. They don't to
XP at Chrysler anymore either.

------
ratsbane
This sounds familiar. I went through something like this at a Fortune-100
company which I won't name here, except they rejected the solution because it
wasn't written in .Net and budgeted around seven figures to rewrite their
existing horrible system in .Net. I quit somewhere along the way but I still
feel the frustration, pain, and perhaps even anger whenever I think of the
stupidity and waste. I hope I never have to go through that again.

------
startupcrazy
Executable specifications. The new compiler was about 5000 lines of Java. The
developer says he can probably reduce most of 3000 lines of it to about 700
productions in YACC. Of course, nobody is interested!

------
rwebb
Uhh...where does the $50 billion come from again?

~~~
axiom
Tracking down-time means knowing where your bottlenecks are. If you know your
bottlenecks are you can improve cycle time. Improving cycle time by just a few
seconds mean massive increases in output.

$50 billion might be a stretch, but it's not far off.

Note: Cycle time is the amount of time it takes to produce a part. It's sort
of like the MHz of the manufacturing world. Usually car plants are setup such
that there are n manufacturing lines in operation at any given time
producing/assembling parts. So you're always at the mercy of the slowest line.
It takes months to comission a new line so it's not just a matter of "adding
servers" to improve production.

~~~
rwebb
Thanks. I've read The Goal.

My point is that Chrysler itself was recently sold for less than $10 billion.
Maybe Cerberus bought because they knew about this code that was written in a
day and now they are going to turn them into a $50 billion dollar software
company?

Look out SAP & Oracle...

~~~
axiom
Ok, well then your question is even easier to answer if you know that data
tracking is serious business in manufacturing.

From the article: "Did you know that there is an IT breakthrough hidden inside
of Chrysler that in the right hands could be worth 50 billion dollars or
more?"

In other words all he's saying is exactly what I replied to your post: that
data collection and tracking (not just for Crystler but as a standalone
product) is worth a lot of money. He's not saying that Chrysler could or would
sell this - in fact that's kind of the point of the post.

~~~
rwebb
I see your point, but the title of the article is "Chrysler, Want To Make an
Extra 50 Billion?"

My point is that if it was written by some dude in a day, it's not going to
make anyone $50 billion, especially Chrysler.

~~~
axiom
Well, the project took 1 month by two guys, so we can assume it was non-
trivial.

As a personal note, I've got a couple of years in manufacturing, with much of
that in automotive. The amount of stupidity that goes on in that industry is
shocking. It doesn't surprise me at all that a couple of smart guys were able
to build something like this. It surprises me that Chrysler was actually able
to get a couple of smart guys to work for them.

~~~
rwebb
yes...that's probably the most confusing part of the article. :)

------
andreyf
Sounds like a prisoner's dilemma kind of problem... individual firms won't
benefit from open sourcing unless everyone open sources.

~~~
brlewis
Not at all. Open sourcing your software not only means you share the benefits,
but also the costs:

<http://web.mit.edu/wwwdev/cgiemail/buybuild.html>

~~~
startupcrazy
Indeed. All of the Detroit automobile companies are now off shoring to India
and China to try to reduce costs. Open sourcing factor floor control and
monitoring systems is simply another way to achieve the same results.

------
mpfefferle
Anyone have any idea what this consultant might have been doing to get this
kind of productivity?

~~~
SwellJoe
As far as I can tell from the article: Magic.

Or, maybe he called it "agile", but I'm not really thinking gymnasts and
ballerinas are magically great developers, though they are strikingly agile.
This article needs some kind of detail--it doesn't answer most of the W's of
good journalism: Who, what, when, where, why, and how. We've only got a really
vague what ("a good developer built something that I liked a lot") and a vague
where (Chrysler). Somehow all of the good bits are completely left out.

~~~
startupcrazy
Yes. You have run into the nature of a non-disclosure agreement the big three
have everyone sign. You cannot tell the good parts.

~~~
SwellJoe
But, that means you don't have a story. You strung me along expecting a
payoff, and there was none. It's more than a bit rude. ;-)

~~~
startupcrazy
I told you too much already. :-) Several clever grammars were written. If you
want any more, you have to buy Chrysler.

~~~
SwellJoe
I'm afraid Chrysler poisoned me as a customer before I was even old enough to
drive. My folks owned a couple of Chrysler products that were the worst
vehicles I've ever dealt with: my mom's Dodge van once stopped steering while
she was driving...yeah, the steering wheel just spun right around. On another
occasion the brakes simply stopped working, pedal to the floor and nothing
happened. Those are seriously dangerous catastrophic failures in dangerous
circumstances and without warning. The engine also had to be entirely replaced
within weeks of the brand new vans purchase, but at least no one was in danger
in that case.

I got to work on them quite a bit growing up--they at least gave me lots of
experience fixing things. But it'll take another generation before folks who
experienced Chrysler in the 80's and 90's, like me, start buying Chrysler
products again...and then only if they are actually making good cars now
(which I'm not confident of). I'm afraid I've been well-trained to buy only
Japanese cars. I've had two fantastic Nissans in the 20 years I've been
driving, and one mediocre (but never broke in dangerous ways or left me
stranded--it just had some annoying quirks) Toyota...I like to drive my cars
into the ground, and the ground comes at me way too fast with American cars,
and Chrysler cars in particular.

Sorry, I know you weren't looking for a rip on Chrysler, but suggesting I buy
a Chrysler product sent me reeling into the past for a moment...I could smell
the burning oil, feel the claustrophobia of laying on concrete under a jacked
up minivan, and everything. I just thought I'd share my pain with you. ;-)

~~~
startupcrazy
I wasn't suggesting you buy a Chrysler product. I was suggesting you buy
Chrysler. You get it all, along with 5000 lines of very clever Java code that
they probably couldn't even find if they wanted to.

~~~
SwellJoe
Heheheh! Much better suggestion. Maybe I could make Chrysler profitable. I've
got forty-one crisp American dollars in my wallet. Who do I talk to? ;-)

~~~
nostrademons
Cerberus. They just bought it though; wait a couple years and they may
reconsider.

BTW, those of us who follow the financial news are laughing because Daimler
(the previous owner) literally _paid_ Cerberus to take Chrysler off its hands.
The purchase price was nominally $7.4B, but it was structured as an investment
into Chrysler itself. In other words, Cerberus "bought" Chrysler by putting
cash into a business it now owns, effectively paying itself. In addition to
that, Daimler _paid_ Cerberus $650M in cash. Yes, that's the seller giving
money to the buyer.

The reason for this is that Chrysler is currently worth less than nothing.
Daimler's earnings are up $1.5B since getting rid of it, and Cerberus took on
Chrysler's $18B of pension obligations. Cerberus probably figures that it can
renegotiate with the UAW and default on Chrysler's pension plan, which'll help
return it to profitability. Daimler couldn't do this because its profitable
Mercedes division was effectively subsidizing workers in Detroit, costing it
bargaining power in any attempt to stiff the unions.

~~~
startupcrazy
Chrysler is currently worth less than nothing, but Chrysler Financial has real
value. Basically, they acquired the unfunded liability of Chrysler as the
price of Chrysler Financial. Chrysler Financial may be work 18B of pension
obligations to Cerberus, especially if they get synergy with GMAC.

------
rsheridan6
How would it benefit Chrysler to open the source? According to this article,
their software gives them a competitive advantage. Why would they want to
share it with other companies?

------
trekker7
I was half expecting this to be a story about Lisp.

~~~
startupcrazy
I was wondering when someone would finally make a comment about Lisp. In fact,
this could very easily be a story about Lisp. Using Lisp to create grammars to
read and execute specification files. This developer was forced by the client
to write entirely in Java, but would probably have used Lex and Yacc, plus
Java, if given a choice. I suspect, folks around here could get the exact same
results in Lisp. The key is, Lisp programmers have likely been taught to think
about the problem in a similar manner. The key is how you think about the
problem, not the specific tools you use.

------
edw519
Actually, this writer's conclusion, open source, is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what
I believe, and what I think is the premise of this forum.

Mega-institution isn't aware of its own golden needle in its haystack? Good!
Another opportunity for a couple of hackers in a spare bedroom.

~~~
Agathos
I don't see the opportunity.

It doesn't sound like a hacking problem; it sounds like a sales problem. If
your customers are so hidebound they won't even use the software they already
have, how will you convince them to pay for, let alone use, yours?

Or are you planning to duplicate that effort and sell it to other
manufacturers (who I hope can still act rationally)?

~~~
edw519
If your solution is so compelling and the demand is there, find better
customers.

------
almost
Given enough incompetent developers or bad managers any project can be a "7
Person Year Application".

------
jemptymethod
give me 2 months and I could do away with AOP by showing how (comparatively)
trivial it is to implement in Lua

