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Vets Who Code

(vetswhocode.io)
63 points mooreds | 1 comments | 31 Mar 25 09:59 UTC | HN request time: 1.227s | source
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the__alchemist ◴[02 Apr 25 19:34 UTC] No.43560610[source]▶
Tangent: I would love to see the US gov and military take coding seriously internally. It's nearly all outsourced to contractors, and the software is usually slow and buggy. I built some tools while in, but it was all bro-level.
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psunavy03 ◴[02 Apr 25 20:05 UTC] No.43560936[source]▶
The trouble is that outside things like CYBERCOM and the NSA, it's hard to pitch a use case for people in uniform to be slinging code. If anything, that just makes cybersecurity/counterintelligence harder, because you have a bunch of those bro-level apps running around, potentially poorly-built and secured by amateur coders. There's not much more justification for people in uniform building software tools than there is having them design and build artillery guns or transport jets. Better to buy those from industry and train folks in uniform to use them.

I don't disagree with how horrible a lot of DOD software is, but that's more an artifact of the broken military procurement process combined with the often-childish attitudes people in tech have about working with the military.

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1. freedomben ◴[02 Apr 25 20:40 UTC] No.43561270[source]▶
> There's not much more justification for people in uniform building software tools than there is having them design and build artillery guns or transport jets.

Yes exactly. I don't have much to add but that was such a great point I wanted to emphasize it.

Also important to consider that as wasteful and expensive as it is to have contractors build stuff, there's at least important market functions in there doing some things and the contractor can be held accountable.