The SR-71 was an impressive engineering feat because it successfully brought together a bunch of really crazy tech and got it to work. All of this with a relatively small team and stone-age (by modern standards) computational ability.
The A-10 was an impressive engineering feat because it perfectly executed a very boring and conservative design. It did one thing, did it very well, and was so reliable it arguably put its producer out of business.
If I had to draw a comparison to software, I'd compare the SR71 with Erlang, and the A-10 with Postgres.
The A-10 was an impressive engineering feat because it perfectly executed a very boring and conservative design. It did one thing, did it very well, and was so reliable it arguably put its producer out of business.
If I had to draw a comparison to software, I'd compare the SR71 with Erlang, and the A-10 with Postgres.