Computer glitches in Toyota cars

Look at the history of DOS and Windows. I am old enough to remember it all.

I wonder if their programmers came from Microsoft. Vista was great!

Programming is hard. It's detail oriented and requires you enjoy finding mistakes in your own work. Testing is a laborious process and all too many take shortcuts.

There is no excuse imo, for these kinds of mistakes other than the pressure to push to market prematurely.

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btw... even NASA screws up. Remember the Mars Lander that crashed on descent? That was because one of the programmers captured speed and altitude in "English" and the other programmer applied the data into the descent thrusters in "Metric". Two guys who just needed to talk... or test each others modules.

Are we still beating this dead horse? Move on.

Until the problem is resolved and the potential to have lives lost is gone, it is not a "Dead Horse".

There are a myriad of things that could cause the computers to fail. I'm leaning towards EFI (Electromagnetic Frequency Interference). I have seen some weird things happen with electronic devices due to interference from outside signals.

One that really comes to mind, is working on a Porsche that had a sceeen cage around the fuel injector control unit. The car had a CB installed and the owner said that this was Porche's solution to stop the engine from cutting out every time he transmitted. Even being next to a truck or car that the CB was being used in could cause a problem (if they were close enough). This was not a good thing to happen on the interstate at 70 mph, or when you were tring to merge onto the interstate.

EFI is a major concern to automotive electrical engineers and a lot of money goes into testing. It's possible that Toyota missed something.

Anyway, it's not dead to me until the problem is resolved.

Programmers are no one special, they just decided to do this for a living, and others have decided to do different things. Programmers need everyone around them, they need doctors,folks to cut their hair, folks to serve up food in a restaurant, people to run the web site they use, well you get where I'm going. It's a support system and we are all part of it.
Everyone's job is hard not just the poor programmer, just needed to get that out in the open. I realize your a programmer, but your not any better than anyone else. people that fail at work need to be dealt with no matter what the excuse period.

You said, the pressure to push to market prematurely is an excuse, OH Please. If the product is not ready it's not ready. Something both Garmin and Toyota could learn from. But if the programmer knows it's not ready then it's up to him to kick and drag his feet to market.

"Programmers are no one special, they just decided to do this for a living, and others have decided to do different things."

Nonsense. Everyone has specail talents and capabilities.

Some people marvel at things I can do. They just can't do them, they don't think the way I do, they don't have the vision I do.

And I marvel at the talents of other people too - I am unable to think the way they do, and I don't have their vision. But I do appreciate how they excel in their chosen field of specialty.

Everybody is unique and special. Some understand technology, while to others it is incomprehensible.

Some understand people, others jsut cannot relate.

Let's not think for a second that those talents are not special, that the peoiple are not special, because without those specialties and talents this world would be a different place. Now whether that would be better or worse place we could debate for decades.

I can be a musician, but you will never make me a fancy dancer.

Nonsense. Everyone has special talents and capabilities. This is my point exactly.

The point I was making is, we are all in this together and depend on each others talents. Your no better than me, do I marvel at someones talents sure I do, Do I detest when someone rubs it in my face, yes I do.

I never said those people weren't talented, I just said they are no more talented than the people they rely on in there every day life to get along.

I myself am very technical, My daughter cuts hair and my wife serves up eggs in a breakfast diner.
Am I any better than either of them, no. Take a Doctor for example, he has a large support staff, nurses, receptionists, bookkeepers, drug reps, the Landlord, the people that make his shingle, etc. Can he work with out them? I would say no.

Everyone has to put the pants on one leg at a time, making us all equal, and if you can take the heat it time to change jobs.

My background is an elect. engineer and software programmer. We always had a favorite quip that said : If you mess with it long enough it will work as compared to things of mechanical nature if you mess with it long enough it will break.

I am very concerned about all of these Toyot'as problems as I own one of their cars. I had recall repair done and car is fine. I have never had any issues with it. However having it said I always read news and try to stay on the top of things in regards of my car. It must be safe and reliable.

I work in the copier industry as a repair tech. Been doing this going on 15 years now. I have seen copiers do a lot of strange things. They can seem fine for a few years after manufacture. Then suddenly problems left and right. Install updated firmware and problems are gone. Something either corrupted the software or depending on inputs/outputs from the machine over time caused the problem.

Now as with the Toyota thing the software may have been initially sound. Then something in the environment whether it is the car directly or some other external EFI source screwed it up. My 07 Camry has not given me any problems. Had the upgrades done at the last oil change.

Something I used to tell a pilot when I was active duty since he had the college education and thought he was better. "That aircraft will not go anywhere without my high school education to put it back together again". Never bothered me again.

I must be older than you then because I remember (owned) Commodore Pet, Vic-20, C-64, Amiga etc. when they first came out!!

Nuvi1300WTGPS

Sold it to buy a Garmin Emap - Yuk. I tend to forget that.

I STILL own my VIC-20 and the tape drive and plotter-printer!

Absolutely amazing what can be done with only 3K RAM. That's right kiddies, 3K! You can't even send an email today that is under 3K!

Not exactly.

The Mars Climate Orbiter crashed due to engineers at the Jet Propulsion Lab requesting specific burns in Newtons and the the engineers at Lockheed Martin used Imperial (English)

The engineers at JPL could see something was not right with the navigation, but their superiors accepted on face the contractor's assurances that all was correct, ignoring their own engineer's concerns because the contract was being paid good money to be correct...

The loss of this mission and that of the Mars Polar Lander a short time later was the death knell of the moronic "Faster, Better, Cheaper" (pick any two) days...

Here's the article about this on CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

Was I that unclear that you misinterpreted everything I said or did you do it just so you could take another cut at me.

No worries Bob. I'm done.