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IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

nextgov.com

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Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#41

Post by pishpash »

raverbashing wrote: post #34

The question for the industry remains: how do we deal with systems that should be up for 10 years? 25 yrs? 50 yrs? 100 yrs? We didn't even have computers as they exist today 50 years ago. How do we separate business logic in a self-contained way that can be independent of hardware and (from a certain level) software?

I'm sure academics have thought about such information representation problems. As for industry, why would they be interested in that? It's like killing the goose that keeps laying golden rewriting eggs.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#43

Post by varjag »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #21
c22 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just have to get the stuck card unjammed, then repunch it and recollate...

...and it was the re-collation step that took a dedicated team of professionals a full day.

To be fair, 140 million taxpayers account for a lot of punchcards.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#44

Post by mlvljr »

_RPM wrote: post #39
favorited wrote: post #2

Fun (scary) fact – significant portions of the IRS tax system is still written in assembly. It's basically the original codebase plus 40 years of additions and patches as the tax code changed. They were working on projects to "elevate" it to Java, because it's pretty difficult to maintain it as-is.

Should it be written in Go, or Rust?

The latest incarnation if Swift, of course!

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#45

Post by varjag »

_RPM wrote: post #39
favorited wrote: post #2

Fun (scary) fact – significant portions of the IRS tax system is still written in assembly. It's basically the original codebase plus 40 years of additions and patches as the tax code changed. They were working on projects to "elevate" it to Java, because it's pretty difficult to maintain it as-is.

Should it be written in Go, or Rust?

Depends on the decade you ask it.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#46

Post by hindsightbias »

ams6110 wrote: post #6

> Since Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in 2010, their partisan attacks have left the IRS with nearly 10,000 fewer customer service representatives to assist taxpayers and a patchwork of IT systems, some dating back to the Kennedy Administration, which is ultimately harming all taxpayers,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., told Nextgov. So the patchwork 1960s-era systems are the fault of Republic…

I worked next to a team in the late 80's where one service center prototyped a wage reporting program that brought in >$150m the first year. They asked for $2M to expand it nationwide. Refused until Clinton came in.

It's easy to throw stones but I doubt anything built today by anyone on HN will rival problems as complex as DEWS, ATC, IMF/BMF or Sabre and be around in ten years, let alone 60.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#47

Post by msla »

johnklos wrote: post #18

Something that the kids of IT today will never learn: Never replace anything unless the thing doing the replacing is better than the thing being replaced. The IRS' IT "upgrade" is just a huge money grab. Nobody has the slightest interest or desire to do anything properly - they simply want in on that lucrative IRS money. It's like the saying: "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no ac…

Yes, because nobody who's old now was ever a dumb kid.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#48

Post by eberkund »

mbell wrote: post #32
johnklos wrote: post #18

Something that the kids of IT today will never learn: Never replace anything unless the thing doing the replacing is better than the thing being replaced. The IRS' IT "upgrade" is just a huge money grab. Nobody has the slightest interest or desire to do anything properly - they simply want in on that lucrative IRS money. It's like the saying: "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no ac…

Or you can continuously keep your code / systems up to date and never get wedged into a nearly impossible situation of having to rewrite 60 year old code (which likely has nothing resembling a test suite nor even a spare piece of compatible hardware to test on).

This. A common answer to criticism of systems in need of replacing is that it is simply too big, too complex and depends on too many old legacy components to make any large changes to. The real solution is not to get into these scenarios in the first place by not doing any kind of maintenance work for decades.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#50

Post by bsder »

_RPM wrote: post #39
favorited wrote: post #2

Fun (scary) fact – significant portions of the IRS tax system is still written in assembly. It's basically the original codebase plus 40 years of additions and patches as the tax code changed. They were working on projects to "elevate" it to Java, because it's pretty difficult to maintain it as-is.

Should it be written in Go, or Rust?

Because that always works so well ...

See the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation fiasco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compens...

These kinds of systems are all about the exceptions and how you enable humans to deal with those, not the rules and how the computer deals with those.

The problem is that the system first needs a comprehensive test suite written. THEN you could actually think about rewriting pieces.

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