Even in slow times, we can make fun of software people.

Okay, these aren't really "software people" like the codemonkeys who hack the Linux kernel or write code for Office. These are embedded systems programmers, who have to deal with different kinds of challenges from regular software engineers. But you've still gotta yell at someone. Spacecraft control falls under the category of a hard real-time system - where if the system fails, people can die. Sounds like someone may not have spent enough time testing this shit out before it was deployed.