EDS "Airplane"

AFallGuy4uCited 3× on HN, 2010–2024

YouTube

other · general · 2010–2024 on HN

A short EDS television commercial that shows an airplane being built while it is in flight. It is an early use of the 'building the plane as it flies' metaphor.

HN mentions it mainly as the origin of the phrase about rebuilding a plane mid-flight, usually applied to software projects.

Arts & entertainment (other)Software practice, open source & careers #eds #commercial #metaphor #softwareprojects

3 comments from Hacker News

@01HNNWZ0MV43FF2024-06 · in “Ask HN: What is the best code base you ever worked on?”

For curious readers, the "building a plane as it flies" metaphor dates back to at least 2000, to these commercials for EDS: ▶ this video I thought it was IBM but I was quite mistaken, so good thing I looked it up lol

Cites View on HN

@whatusername2010-07 · in “Apple’s Antenna Design and Test Labs”

▶ this video Why build them first. // I've never understood that ad - it always screams "we don't take proper care" to me..

Critical View on HN

@cubicle672010-05 · in “LLVM's Clang going into FreeBSD's base system”

It's really hard to rebuild a plane while in flight Obviously these people didn't know that ▶ this video [Disclaimer - I used to work for them]

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