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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

It's not an indictment of modern software. It's an indictment of using SW where not needed.

Don't put discrete, isolated HW functions behind a SW powered screen. It's that simple.

It's Android Auto and Apple Carplay. Not sure how that's an "isolated HW function". That would be an issue if they put the turn signals or AC controls on the screen only.

> That would be an issue if they put the turn signals or AC controls on the screen only.

Many cars have AC controls on the screen only.

I know, and that is a separate issue from what the post is complaining about being broken.

And my point was that this isn't merely a "poor SW testing" problem, but something broken from the get go. Disparate systems shouldn't be connected together such that one thing breaking can cause others to break.

It does not follow from the article. You're just complaining about a different annoying thing that uses the same screen on some cars. A lot of controls are quite far away from simple on/off switches nowadays, so there's probably software behind that too (hopefully simpler and with better testing).

My car has AC controls that are only accessible via touch screen. Most new cars do.

Pretty much this. The less software on the car, the fewer problems.

It's practically impossible to test every permutation of code against every system. Maybe AI can help, but practically it'll just mean the software gets more complicated, with more features. And to top it all off, more and more features get regulated, so they have to be there. The rear-view camera requirement in particular, since you need a screen to see the output. And if you have a screen... well it's an already paid cost, so, might as well display other things too.

We should kill the reg.

It all comes down to cost. At scale, testing hardware is appreciably more expensive than testing software. The former requires specialized machinery that costs the soul of your firstborn, and the logistics overhead for each do-over means long iteration times. The latter can be done with a CI pipeline for pennies worth of compute in a fraction of a working day.

Stuff like climate control and radio/Bluetooth were included in many/most cars in the last decade. Expensive as they were, the cars were a lot cheaper than today's cars. And they just worked, which means they were either so simple that sophisticated testing wasn't necessary, or they tested it thoroughly.

I don't think they're saving that much by ditching them and going to SW.

They also didn't need updates (well, the Bluetooth module may have, but nothing else).

It definitely was nice not to have to worry whether the climate control may stop working because the radio was modified. Or because of any update.

As a driver, dumping everything into one SW system has significantly degraded my experience. What I gain ("Ooh, I can now use Waze on a bigger screen!") is minimal.

> The latter can be done with a CI pipeline for pennies worth of compute in a fraction of a working day.

I'd appreciate the point if they were successful at it. As it is, they're not. It's rare to find a non-buggy car.

bluetooth audio is probably all one needs for phone <-> car integration. but carplay/android auto are sadly really popular. So already, your phone can connect in two different ways, just over bluetooth, with cars today. And car companies have to support both. Plus the car must show something on the screen when a phone isn't there, and the rear-view camera isn't on, at the very least on test drives/ showroom displays.

I don't know. On balance, the reality is cars are better overall nowadays, but every aspect of our life has gotten more complicated, including cars.

If you had the option of no screen at all, no rear-view camera, and with physical switches, would you? If this Slate truck gets released, that's the closest, but it's still required to have a rear-view camera/screen sadly.

I want the screen for the rear view camera.

I'd be OK with the screen doing other things, as long as it's not inferior to my just using the phone. Currently, AA is inferior.

You don't need a huge screen for the rear view camera. There's plenty of space to have that screen and have all the usual buttons for climate control and radio/audio. Cars had been doing that for over a decade.

At scale, testing software is appreciably more expensive than using hardware. That's why at most people test a tiny slice of it, and ships out broken software in the hopes of fixing it later. Testing hardware is expensive because nobody thinks it can be fixed cheaply afterwards.

See also: the article linked to this thread.

It’s an indictment of business attitudes towards customers. It’s not the software’s fault, the software is doing what it was supposed to. The fault lies with the organisation that decided that’s what it should do.

wouldn't that be impossible in this case? since android auto needs to draw to the screen, control infotainment, etc. even a dedicated USB + rocker switch for android auto would still need a software path to do those things

Putting things like climate control, car settings, etc on the same screen as Android Auto is not at all necessary.

Older cars (that still had touch sensitive displays), simply had separate HW modules and HW interfaces (buttons/switches) for the rest. You never had to worry that modifying/repairing/updating one would impact the other.

I see what you mean. Sort of what slate is going for . Let’s see how that goes.

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