Programmers vs Programs

[brunchybit]

Let me start by saying that I love my R1T! Driving a ICE vehicle is grueling after a year plus of having my Rivian! However, I get frustrated every time there is an update because I have to wonder what glitch will pop up after it is installed! So,can the more tech savvy among us please explain why Rivian can't do these updates without giving us more headaches? Is it the people they have hired to update the software or the software itself?

Hi! 17+ years of experience in software engineering over here. Here's my take:

Building any software system is like trying to constantly improve a house with a million moving parts, all the time. Every component must work with every other component, and any tiny error in say, the plumbing, might actually take out your electrical panel, or even compromise the structural integrity of your roof.

But let's add some more layers of variability and complexity. Given the above metaphor, now imagine that every 3 months or so, the design of the house completely changes. Not only are you trying to patch things like leaky pipes, cracking concrete, or electrical wiring, you have a completely new spec every quarter or so that you need to implement. What is more, you can't actually sell the house to anyone unless you embrace the consistently changing house spec as a cost of doing business.

So, if the house plans change every 3 months, but we have to ensure that the house doesn't burn down, flood, or collapse, we can add an additional layer of complexity to this metaphor. Clearly if we have ever changing specifications and constraints, we can't expect a single worker to do this job. So, it's going to take teams of workers to coordinate, plan, and execute on the quarterly plan to actually get the house into specification for that 3 month cycle, and anticipate where the next specification could possibly change what we've just built!

I'm not saying that this is the way software will be built in the long term. But, until the rosy-tinted day that we create a sophisticated enough Artificial Intelligence to solve all of these problems, we're going to be stuck with the constant build, deploy, release, and fix cycle for the foreseeable future.

For those of us excited about AI, just keep in mind one more aspect of variability that AI will add to the mix I've outlined above. We actually don't know, deterministically, how AI works. With code, we understand the inputs, outputs, expected behavior. And we still write buggy code, despite having the ability to deterministically test and deploy it!

Now if you factor in some sort of massively intelligent, sophisticated, yet extremely naive and fallible free-agent into the mix of the ever changing house - we have a ways to go.

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[RiviALAN]

I get what everyone is saying, but I am wondering about a possible solution to the glitches. What if Rivian stops deciding that a certain layout/change to the display is better? Personally, I don’t like relearning where everything is after an update! Possibly showing my ignorance but what if everyone had to set everything to basic/factory before an update? More of a hassle but would it help get the update out with less bugs? Less factors to consider for the programmers?

 

[SwampNut]

The current re-arrangement of the screen is a massive improvement and solves a lot of problems. Here's one dumb one, but was a pain on every drive with my main passenger. She's light enough to sometimes lose the airbag, and a warning pops up (by law). It used to block her AC controls. Now it's out of the way as it should be.

Everything has moved to a better location.

I've got many decades in tech with some in software products. Evolve or die.

 

[RiviALAN]

To be clear, I'm not against improving things/evolving. Can't they make improvements without changing the displays? Really, the biggest issues are the glitches after updates and not knowing if my R1T is going to be bricked by them! To me that is HUGE!

 

[racekarl]

I get what everyone is saying, but I am wondering about a possible solution to the glitches. What if Rivian stops deciding that a certain layout/change to the display is better? Personally, I don’t like relearning where everything is after an update! Possibly showing my ignorance but what if everyone had to set everything to basic/factory before an update? More of a hassle but would it help get the update out with less bugs? Less factors to consider for the programmers?

The counter point is that having a software defined vehicle means you are able to get access to improvements based on learning how people interact with the vehicle in the real world. If you held the UI as immutable, you would never get a fix to a mistake made in the original design.

I also think your second idea would actually have the opposite effect from what you intend. If the developers thought they could count on some uniform state they might be inclined to do LESS edge case testing, which would be exposed when users reverted back to their preferred settings.

 

[RiviALAN]

SwampNut and racekarl, thanks for the feedback! What I'm mostly hearing from people in the tech world is that "it's just the way it is" attitude and that is discouraging to me!

 

[zefram47]

Funny. I've had nearly an update per month since March 2023 and only had one issue in that time...the one in November 2023 with 2023.42.0 that caused the screens to go into a boot loop. Every other update has worked as advertised with no problems.

 

[OldGoat]

The Ugly Truth about Software | Rivian Forum - R1T R1S R2 R3 News, Specs, Models, RIVN Stock -- Rivianforums.com

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

SwampNut and racekarl, thanks for the feedback! What I'm mostly hearing from people in the tech world is that "it's just the way it is" attitude and that is discouraging to me!

The real answer is simple.

Could software be perfect and have no bugs? Yes, it could.

Do companies have infinite money and time to spend making their software perfect? No, they don't.

Are software engineers incentivized to make large changes and implement new features quickly more than ensure perfect reliability? Yes, almost always.

The same questions can be asked about physical products. Why does Ford keep shipping vehicles that need recalls? Why do some of their cars explode and kill people? Why don't they just make them better from the start?

Because they make more money shipping things quickly than they would if they spent tons of time making them perfect.

 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

You've already gotten some great answers here. I could chime in as another "I work in software development" person, but you've already got that. If you've been following the news, the Crowdstrike issue took down how many businesses and organizations this morning? I joke, but my first reaction was "Sounds like someone was testing in production", haha. Software is hard.

In any case, enjoy this XKCD:

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency

 

[SANZC02]

Ask Crowdstrike how hard deploying updates are….

Might want to wait until next week though, they may be a little busy today….??

 

[RiviALAN]

Thank you guys for making me laugh! On a serious note-Coincidentally, I had just watched "Leave the world behind" and my first thought was oh S here we go!

 

[COdogman]

I haven’t yet had an issue after an update??‍

 

[RiviALAN]

COdogman, please tell me your secret technique!

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