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Comment by VeejayRampay | Hacker News Reader

Airbus plans are a silly source of pride for me as a French 30-something. They're one of the very few tokens of pan-European success in tech and engineering. Airbus being a subsidiary of EADS, a company that works across European lines (Germany, France, the UK), it's living proof that despite all the natural hurdles and bickering, we can still be competitive and innovative as a continental entity.

I wish there were more examples like this one in the midst of this silly Eurozone crisis.

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Actually there is a few other successful engineering examples in France, such Alstom with its TGV, or even Dassault.

I find this really strange that whereas "traditional engineering" is pretty strong and remarkable in France, there is almost nothing in computer sciences.

> there is almost nothing in computer sciences.

Or you don't know them or don't realize they are French…

- OVH (Biggest server host in the world) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OVH)

- Ubisoft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubisoft),

- Capgemini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capgemini),

- STMicroelectronics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STMicroelectronics),

- Bull (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_Bull),

- DailyMotion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailymotion),

- etc.

I wouldn't be proud of Capgemini.

And lest we forget the Concorde as a French / English engineering marvel.

True, it was - despite the outrageous ticket prices - a money loser of the highest order. Nevertheless, a beautiful piece of engineering and arguably the most beautiful civilian plane ever built.

I, for one, regret never to have flown in it.

> in France, there is almost nothing in computer sciences

What about INRIA?

"Inria is a public research body dedicated to digital science and technology" - http://www.inria.fr/en/‎

Most people are completely unaware of what CS researchers are doing in France because they don't work on things which the public finds ultra-sexy. Most of what they do and are good at has direct industrial application.

They made some pretty interesting things in type theory, language design (OCaml), proof (Coq), static analysis and certification (B-method, Frama-C, CompCert).

All of these is useful if you want to do safe embedded softwares for your planes, flight control softwares, automatic metros or nuclear reactor monitoring systems (which they do) but it isn't really easy to explain to the general public.

There is also a supposedly quite strong numerical modelling group working on nuclear deterrence but most of this stuff is classified. Let's also not forget that France still is a major arm dealer so you have some R&D done by private defence companies. Nothing comparable to the USA but you still apparently have some development in targeting, surveillance and interception (well, France has a world covering array network, I hope they at least try to use it).

Now, there is nothing particularly exceptional here. The situation is mostly the same in all publicly founded laboratories around the world. What France doesn't have very much is people doing frivolous stuff like email sorting or social network aka start-ups but that's another problem.

Fabrice Bellard is french.

He is the father of FFmpeg (which pretty much makes online video possible), and QEmu (which is one of the most versatile emulator/virtualization software).

Why silly? Pride is a very strong motivation. The important thing is that pride for our own successes doesn't become hate for others' successes.

It's silly because we haven't contributed to the achievement in any way.

You contribute as a member of a civilized society that makes it all possible. The reason A350's aren't being built in Bangladesh isn't just the lack of monetary capital. It's the lack of social capital, in the form of functional institutions that enable some people to concentrate on things like next-generation airplanes.

To what rayiner said, I'll add that feeling part of something (the EU, in this case) is not silly - it's a basic human need. And if you feel part of something, it's also human to feel good for its successes and bad for its failures.

Well I find all manners of nationalistic pride kind of silly. Like someone said below, it's not like I did anything to make that happen, besides the taxes I'm paying.

The pride I'm feeling in this case is more a measure of the fact that Europe still produces great engineers and can sometimes cooperate to make great things happen. It's hope for the future.

What? Europe is literally world's first industrial power. Take any phone, laptop, car, etc. and trace back where the machines that made the machines that made the machines .... that made the parts of the device come from and most of the time you will end in UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland ...

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