>assembler-to-Java project Where's my gif of that guy who looks skeptically at that thing he's looking at? You know that one.
Here you go:
https://memegenerator.net/instance/81318657/futuram-psycholo...
(Squinting Fry from Futurama)
The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
91–100 of 224 posts
Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
...and any sizable employer offers healthcare and a 401(k). So at best you could say they're betting on an inflation-adjusted pension? That's not going to sell many candidates.
I would take a government guaranteed pension and lifetime health care over 401k any day.
They are only guaranteed until some elected official decides to give you a haircut on your deferred paychecks (Which is what a pension is), right as you're about to retire. (Or shortly after you do.)
I'd hedge, and prefer splitting my money between both.
Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#93> in theory, there’s no way to translate assembler code. They way it runs is not how it reads Wat?
Oh wow the article says that. "It does not run how it reads really..." that is the polar opposite of assembly. Compiled languages are more likely do thing under the head you don't expect especially a language ran in VM with garbage collection like Java. Also Java why? I would not trust a language system dependent oracle. The days of Sun Microsystems is sadly gone. =(
jhayward elsewhere in these comments explains what they might mean: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16378486
Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would take a government guaranteed pension and lifetime health care over 401k any day.
They are only guaranteed until some elected official decides to give you a haircut on your deferred paychecks (Which is what a pension is), right as you're about to retire. (Or shortly after you do.) I'd hedge, and prefer splitting my money between both.
You still can do both if you work for the government.
Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you saying this is how contracts are awarded on FedBiz Ops? I know a handful of small players, myself included who have won IT contracts with the gov't and it is not at all like you stated.
Small contracts are an entirely different matter. Try bagging something >> $1M or defense related. I've worked for the government on small jobs here in the EU a couple of times, as long as you stay below a certain amount you can bypass a ton of requirements. But once you go above that threshold the number of players drops very rapidly and there is no escaping the formal process. If you are capable of selling large co…
Here is one of the two young entrepreneurs (19 and 23 years old) that secured ~$300M DoD contract. So obviously, it is not as bad. ;)
In 2005, Packouz (23 years old at the time) joined Efraim Diveroli (19 years old at the time) in Diveroli's arms company AEY Inc. By the end of 2006, the company had won 149 contracts worth around $10.5 million.[1] In early 2007, AEY secured a nearly $300 million U.S. government contract to supply the Afghan Army with 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, millions of rounds for SVD Dragunov sniper rifles, aviation rockets and other munitions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Packouz
EDIT: added quote from Wikipedia
Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#96Wow, what a cool project to work on: working out the logic flows in assembler and breaking them out so that they can be translated into a higher-level language. I've always thought that this type of government work should be open to bids from anyone . If the government is worried about trojans, malware, etc., then they can easily hire an auditor to audit the code and vouch for its authenticity. The fact that only ver…
Lobbyists usually thwart any opportunity for someone cheap and legitimate to do the job. They've been trying to get someone to replace the humvee for decades and usually it's a 400 million dollar endeavor that results in a lesser product.
It's like these large companies take on the work, then instead of doing it they hire lawyers to figure out loopholes in the contract. Then they just pay lobbyists to get politicians to award them more contracts. All the while doing just enough to not get sued into oblivion.
All great ideas are spoiled by great bureaucrats and even greater lobbyists.
Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
The actual federal pay schedules are here: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... The GS-15 range for the DC area is $135k-164k. For federal government employees, salary only represents about half of their total compensation, which includes a lifetime inflation adjusted pension and medical benefits.
What kind of medical benefits are we talking about? How many years do you have to work for the government to get it? My employer's healthcare plan costs my employer ~20k/year as long as I'm employed, more if I had children, yet for some reason, nobody ever counts that as part of AMAFAGOPL salaries.
There's not a single "federal employee medical plan", there's a set of insurance plan choices like most large employers and you choose what level of risk/deductible and coverage you want for what you're willing to pay. Standard Flex Savings and Health Savings plans are also available. AFAIK you're eligible to sign up on day one of employment just like most employers. My wife is a fed, last year the government contributed $14k to our health insurance, which is pretty much in line with most plans from large companies. I've had developer jobs where the benefit plans were competitive or comparable to our federal benefits plan, we just stay on the federal plan because my wife doesn't plan on leaving federal service and the continuity is easier. The only advantage really is that there's a lot of federal employees on every possible plan so all the plans are pretty good compared to what you can get at smaller companies. If you work at a company of a 100 or more people, that company should be able to get you similar rates. I don't have first hand experience or much knowledge to speak to, but I have heard federal insurance plans are quite desirable for folks with expensive pre-existing conditions.
The other reply is a bit dated too, there's no longer a real pension available to new employees. There are probably still long-term employees or retirees kicking around with those older pre-1987 retirement packages, but all recent hires are on a plan that's pretty much equivalent to a 401k (Thrift Savings Plan) + a Basic Benefits plan (which is pretty basic and you still pay into. It roughly equates to getting two Social Security payments instead of one). The bulk of a federal employee's retirement funds will come from contributions to their TSP plan.
Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
The actual federal pay schedules are here: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... The GS-15 range for the DC area is $135k-164k. For federal government employees, salary only represents about half of their total compensation, which includes a lifetime inflation adjusted pension and medical benefits.
...and any sizable employer offers healthcare and a 401(k). So at best you could say they're betting on an inflation-adjusted pension? That's not going to sell many candidates.
The tax benefits of being an IRS programmer who writes critical code that nobody else can understand are incalculable.
Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
The actual federal pay schedules are here: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... The GS-15 range for the DC area is $135k-164k. For federal government employees, salary only represents about half of their total compensation, which includes a lifetime inflation adjusted pension and medical benefits.
What kind of medical benefits are we talking about? How many years do you have to work for the government to get it? My employer's healthcare plan costs my employer ~20k/year as long as I'm employed, more if I had children, yet for some reason, nobody ever counts that as part of AMAFAGOPL salaries.
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Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> nail down all the functionality the assembly program This often proves to be much harder than expected which is /why/ people almost never touch systems like this where the creators are long gone
It's the most difficult part of the project. However, nailing down the functionality upfront separates a successful project from a failed one. The implementation is the easy part. The functionality documentation will provide great value beyond this project. I assume this assembly program does the tax calculation, so the IRS tax code can be consulted to verify the functionality. Functional tests can be written against…
> It's the most difficult part of the project
I'll agree with that heartily.
> the IRS tax code can be consulted to verify the functionality
You're not wrong, but the problem is often not that. The tax code helps when verifying the system end to end. But it's not like there's one single program that "does the tax" that you can verify that way.
The individual bits they're trying to replace are probably more like "fetch all these records from this one mainframe with format X and convert them this way, except if it's Feb 29th in which case fetch it from this other server and convert it another way and then pass it along, except for resident aliens which come from an entirely different place, fetch those from tape storage". This is much harder to get right without formal specs, which there almost certainly aren't.
In this case what we have is a "reference implementation" (a.k.a the implementation is the specification), and you can guess how well those go.
All this is not to say that they shouldn't have been doing what you're suggesting, but to say that you're making it sound easier than it is now that they're here.