alt Hacker NewsThe 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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People in the military have normal jobs, not everyone is out in the field sending rounds downrange all the time.
There is no reason that one of those jobs can't be "software engineer." There is nothing intrinsic about the military that would make them "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.
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.