Computer says no • Hacker News Board

Re: Computer says no

#21

Post by boredguy8 » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:00 PM UTC

rick_2047 wrote: post #4

This really creeps me out you know. Money has a first person ontology. Paper, metal, gold or bits are money because we believe its money. But if the reported numbers for the bank’s exposure were regularly billions of dollars adrift of reality then now can I believe that what I have is not going to disappear in a glitch or is created because of a glitch. Disclaimer:I am not an economist nor do I earn anything right no…

Shared belief that large tangible objects have value is not fundamentally different from shared belief that small bits in a system have value. Shared agreement is what keeps the whole thing going.

Re: Computer says no

#22

Post by nkassis » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:06 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #13

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #2

" . . . isn’t Vernon Hill, one of the bank’s founders, tempted to build an IT system of his own? I hate programmers, replies this dyed-in-the-wool entrepreneur. They only cause trouble." Spoken like someone who's been there on a few projects.

A banker accusing programmers of causing trouble??

well to be fair, the programmers were part of the latest wave of problems.

Re: Computer says no

#23

Post by nkassis » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:12 PM UTC

I like how old mainframe apps are always blamed in these articles. These apps written ages ago are in my view quite incredible. How many of us have written software that will be used 30 years from now?

Every time I hear about great rewrites of mainframe application (Air control fiasco of a few years ago) I just am amazed at what the original programmers managed to build which is still in use.

Rewriting that stuff means rewriting all the business logic embedded in those applications. I expect that most of the time, new apps must follow the exact flow the old apps had or else the employees using it won't like it. I've seen this first hand, were talking about buttons being placed exactly the same way.

Even if these banks modernized, the business processes would stay the same.

Re: Computer says no

#24

Post by swedegeek » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:14 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #3

Loved the reference to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZAoMv_QnAU

Haha. The title is exactly why I checked out the link. It was indeed about British banks. Here's the 6s version of the reference...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOdjCb4LwQY

Good stuff.

Re: Computer says no

#25

Post by cema » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:31 PM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #23

I like how old mainframe apps are always blamed in these articles. These apps written ages ago are in my view quite incredible. How many of us have written software that will be used 30 years from now? Every time I hear about great rewrites of mainframe application (Air control fiasco of a few years ago) I just am amazed at what the original programmers managed to build which is still in use. Rewriting that stuff mea…

  How many of us have written software 
  that will be used 30 years from now?

We may not always know that.

Re: Computer says no

#26

Post by thwarted » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:41 PM UTC

agl wrote: post #19

mseebach wrote: post #7

The banks website seems to be at https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/ .. but Chrome says the SSL certificate is signed by an unknown authority, who claims to be VeriSign.

The server is misconfigured: it's missing intermediate certificates in its chain. Chrome 6.x should be able to work around this on all platforms at the cost of making the site slower. Additionally, the server is open to prefix attacks. For a bank, that's a pretty miserable state of affairs.

Chrome 6.x should be able to work around this on all platforms at the cost of making the site slower.

This sounds, uh, weird. Got a link to more information? I'd like to see the rationale for having the browser subvert misconfigured servers; this would seem to undermine the already precarious SSL state we're in.

Re: Computer says no

#27

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:42 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #17

shrikant wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did. Pretty much all of it.

To whom? Accidenture?

That's got to be the funniest thing I read all day, thank you Gaius.

We're often on opposite sites of various fences but with this one liner you've definitely made my day so thank you very much for that. :)

Re: Computer says no

#28

Post by jerf » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:43 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #17

shrikant wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did. Pretty much all of it.

To whom? Accidenture?

On the basis that they've gotten far enough to open a branch, I'm going to guess "no".

Re: Computer says no

#29

Post by Revisor » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:48 PM UTC

Without appropriate design, yesterday's success is tomorrow's straightjacket, since today's great applications are tomorrow's legacy systems.

Bill Buxton in Sketching User Experiences, page 209

Re: Computer says no

#30

Post by clistctrl » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 4:49 PM UTC

cema wrote: post #25

nkassis wrote: post #23

I like how old mainframe apps are always blamed in these articles. These apps written ages ago are in my view quite incredible. How many of us have written software that will be used 30 years from now? Every time I hear about great rewrites of mainframe application (Air control fiasco of a few years ago) I just am amazed at what the original programmers managed to build which is still in use. Rewriting that stuff mea…

How many of us have written software that will be used 30 years from now? We may not always know that.

god i hope some of the crap i wrote when I was just starting dies in a pit of flames. To see it live for 30 years would be a nightmare spanning generations.