For the Programmers

[legion]

CARELESS CODE RECYCLING CAUSES KILLER KANGA'S
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

[cowtown]

I would pay to see a Kangaroo launching a shoulder-mounted missile. I would pay a lot.

[TimothyFarrar]

Great find Chris!

This is exactly the thing I would have left in the program as a joke!