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The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

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Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#91

Post by smeyer »

siavosh wrote: post #72
mekael wrote: post #55

Ah legacy enterprise software/hardware, it keeps me employed and insane. Where i currently work we have a system which was originally designed in '69(coding started in 75) running on an ibm iSeries. It's old old tech and most of the system is cludged together so poorly that instead of being able to write patches we just write wrappers around the applications(micro services really) that modify the program as its runni…

It's an interesting time when one can build a living/breathing piece of engineering that can outlive us indefinitely.

This isn't specific to computer or software engineering, of course. There are still Roman aqueducts in use that were engineered thousands of years ago.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#92

Post by mey »

crystalmeph wrote: post #89

Not for technical reasons, but my worst job in software was also my first, a part time gig in college back in the late 90s. It was a software company owned by two people that didn't write code or do anything on a computer other than send email. They had somehow managed to hire somebody to make a moderately successful version 1.0 of their product, but now none of the original programmers were there and they were tryin…

If this was in the US, you should seek back wages through your state.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#93

Post by icedchai »

1971genocide wrote: post #65
notacoward wrote: post #52

How ancient this all seems . . . until you realize people are doing the exact same thing by shipping "golden" VM/container images around instead of doing proper package and configuration management.

As a engineer I do not have time to get into this new VM/container thing. I fail to see how it leads to anything productive ( no offence ). Call me a simpleton but I am happy with better package management and config systems.

"New" VM thing? It's only been around for eons now.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#94

Post by protomyth »

njharman wrote: post #79
protomyth wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia used tubes in a number of fighter radars because they could use a lot of power to burn through opponent's ECM.

Also less prone to EMP from nukes.

True, also a well understood technology that they would have no trouble producing.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#95

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

vonmoltke wrote: post #2

Not nearly as bad, but this reminds me of some of the ridiculous requirements at the last program I worked at my previous employer. One of those was that our code had to compile on a 32-bit SPARC pizza box running Solaris 2.6. This was in 2009. It was all about some stupid metric: our code portability was measured by how many different platforms we could compile and run on. It didn't matter how obsolete or inappropri…

I had to port a product to Solaris 8 on similarly crusty hardware in 2011. Wasn't so bad other than having to work around an excruciatingly slow build process.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#96

Post by crystalmeph »

mey wrote: post #92
crystalmeph wrote: post #89

Not for technical reasons, but my worst job in software was also my first, a part time gig in college back in the late 90s. It was a software company owned by two people that didn't write code or do anything on a computer other than send email. They had somehow managed to hire somebody to make a moderately successful version 1.0 of their product, but now none of the original programmers were there and they were tryin…

If this was in the US, you should seek back wages through your state.

I got another job quickly, and it didn't hurt me too much financially (I was still living at home with my parents at the time). But you're right, I should have, if only to force them them out of business and out of the next guy's misery.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#97

Post by egwor »

peeters wrote: post #77

> That idea was nixed since the machine was old and fragile, we couldn't risk poking around in the inside. Well that pretty much sums up everything doesn't it. I don't see how a rational brain could produce that thought.

I once worked somewhere where we never switched an old machine off. It was 15 years old and would cost £15K to replace. They were recommended to never switch it off - on the basis that it was most likely to fail on power up.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#98

Post by TrevorJj »

russell wrote: post #37

As soon as I saw the title, I thought of the furor when Gingrich and Clinton discovered that the FAA was using vacuum tube computers and radar in the air traffic control system. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/clinton.htm The foreign (sole) vacuum tube supplier that Clinton mentioned was Russia. Oh, the embarrassment! I knew that there were some delays in rolling out the the replacement system, so I did so…

I was in the control tower of an international airport as recently as 4 years ago, and can confirm that at least some of the systems were still built on 1960's technology - the radar scopes were basically pre-CRT technology. On the other hand, for something as fault-intolerant as air traffic control there's a huge amount of value in reliable, well understood systems.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#99

Post by 6stringmerc »

russell wrote: post #37

As soon as I saw the title, I thought of the furor when Gingrich and Clinton discovered that the FAA was using vacuum tube computers and radar in the air traffic control system. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/clinton.htm The foreign (sole) vacuum tube supplier that Clinton mentioned was Russia. Oh, the embarrassment! I knew that there were some delays in rolling out the the replacement system, so I did so…

When working in risk management business development, my firm was pursuing some line of business with Sabre. Most probably know, but they're in the travel logistics business primarily. A spinoff from American Airlines.

Anyway, when I was getting materials together, I reviewed the CEO's summary remarks and looking ahead to the future. Over, and over, and over, and over again he railed at the FAA and government for not enhancing the flight systems nationwide. It would've been funny if he wasn't so right in his passionate pleas.

Re: The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

#100

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

notacoward wrote: post #52

How ancient this all seems . . . until you realize people are doing the exact same thing by shipping "golden" VM/container images around instead of doing proper package and configuration management.

With those you at least have a theoretical chance of making improvements.
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