CARELESS CODE RECYCLING CAUSES KILLER KANGAS

Mutant Marsupials Take Up Arms Against Australian Air Force

The reuse of some object-oriented code has caused tactical headaches for Australia's armed forces. As virtual reality simulators assume larger roles in helicopter combat training, programmers have gone to great lengths to increase the realism of their scenarios, including detailed landscapes and - in the case of the Northern Territory's Operation Phoenix- herds of kangaroos (since disturbed animals might well give away a helicopter's position).

The head of the Defense Science & Technology Organization's Land Operations/Simulation division reportedly instructed developers to model the local marsupials' movements and reactions to helicopters. Being efficient programmers, they just re-appropriated some code originally used to model infantry detachment reactions under the same stimuli, changed the mapped icon from a soldier to a kangaroo, and increased the figures' speed of movement.

Eager to demonstrate their flying skills for some visiting American pilots, the hotshot Aussies "buzzed" the virtual kangaroos in low flight during a simulation. The kangaroos scattered, as predicted, and the visiting Americans nodded appreciatively... then did a double-take as the kangaroos reappeared from behind a hill and launched a barrage of Stinger missiles at the hapless helicopter. (Apparently the programmers had forgotten to remove that part of the infantry coding.)

The lesson?

Objects are defined with certain attributes, and any new object defined in terms of an old one inherits all the attributes. The embarrassed programmers had learned to be careful when reusing object-oriented code, and the Yanks left with a newfound respect for Australian wildlife.

Simulator supervisors report that pilots from that point onward have strictly avoided kangaroos, just as they were meant to.

-- From June 15, 1999 Defense Science and Technology Organization Lecture Series, Melbourne, Australia, and staff reports

-- a (a@a.a), December 06, 1999

Answers

LOL !!!! LOLROTFLOAOTWP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a, thanks for this gut-busting hilarious report. "weird & wild" indeed! LOL !!!!!!!!!

This is now our #1 favorite computer programming story ;^D

LOL !!!!!!!!!!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), December 06, 1999.

Tears, LOL, we need a similar program in Canada with crows, geese, bears and many other species, launching a coordinated attack from multiple directions and altitudes. Thank you, Take care, Joe

-- Joe Boivin (jboivin@globalmf.org), December 06, 1999.

This is better than the drunken terrorist squirrels, woodchucks and crows!

-- Guffaw (gasp@giggle.laugh), December 06, 1999.

Hope nobody was listening outside my office when I read this one. Hoot of the day. Thanks!

-- Thinman (thinman38@hotmail.com), December 06, 1999.

SOOOOOO....

*THAT'S* where the Squirrel King has been hiding out! Better watch out folks, this looks like it might be a little more dangerous even, than the Rodent Revolutionaries plans to take out power poles!

Stinger Missiles, Huh? Maybe there *will* be 'planes falling from the sky' (with a little assist from the SK and his furry band of rebels and their new apparent allies, the marsupials.)

-- just another (another@engineer.com), December 06, 1999.

HILARIOUS!

Just remember, though, that SK has also apparently spread his growing revolution to at least ONE outer planet!

You don't think that his relatives either hid away on board that Mars Lander, and ate their way through some critical wiring, or maybe he just called his brothers to arms on the Red Planet when the Lander set down?

Another $200 million write-off for NASA--Not ANOTHER Squirrel Airborne?

-- profit of doom (doom@helltopay.ca), December 06, 1999.

Shades of the scene from Crocodile Dundee!

And people wonder why we worry about "black boxes" being a problem with embedded systems...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), December 07, 1999.