Well, let's see here. Embedded systems are probably most heavily used in manufacturing, yet we've seen no problems there. They also find critical use in the chemical industry (no problems) shipping (no problems) water treatment (no problems), agriculture (no problems), and nearly everything else you can think of...

And oil, where prices have been rising rapidly. Now, this could be due to two things -- OPEC throttling back production, or date bugs in their embedded systems.

We can reject the first out of hand, since this is KNOWN to be true, and is therefore uninteresting. But for the second, we need to examine what might be special about the oil industry to have so many date bugs.

Clearly, every dumb embedded system programmer in the world is to be found in the oil industry. But this doesn't really clarify whether the oil industry *recruits* stupid engineers, or whether there's something about the industry that *makes* them stupid.

There's something to be said for both possibilities. If oil makes them stupid, we need to explore WHY this might be. Some possibilities are oil fumes, slippery keyboards, or the distraction of thinking deep thoughts (necessary when you deal with wells).

Alternatively, It's a truism that first-rate people hire first-rate people and second-rate people hire third-rate people. Whether this is due to insecurity by those doing the hiring or due to an inability of second-rate people to judge competence of applicants is a topic that will have to await another day. But it is possible that everyone who hires software engineers in the oil industry is second rate. Or possibly only the dumbest engineers have the required oily personalities. Finally, perhaps oily engineers have never *had* any dates, so they don't know how to handle them properly.

At present, investigators lack sufficient data to distinguish among these competing possibilities. But research is continuing, because there must be *some* explanation.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 07, 2000

Answers

What, no theories? C'mon, there's gotta be a reason somewhere. Help us out here.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 07, 2000.

Flint, it is a well known fact that lawyers who fail their state exams go to work for the oil industry as embedded chips engineers. to gain deeper experience and they think it is in bedded engineering.

I think you are better at humor than I..

-- Mr. Pinochle (pinochledd@aol.com), March 09, 2000.