I love when I run across minor versions of these sort of archeology projects in the course of my job.
Git makes it a lot easier though.
Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
11–20 of 52 posts
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#12> Oh, and as an external consultant, I'm not allowed to know some of the trade secrets in the documents. [...] I need to smuggle these trade secrets back into the company, so that the internal side can handle them. They just have to make sure they don't accidentally repeat them back to me. he's not supposed to know things he made and left behind. this all gets me thinking about the difference between the employees an…
At least the company hired him back as a consultant with a big paycheck.
It's ironic how managers and executices in organization, especially but not limited to companies, are always stressing about the clock for a few minutes lost here and there by employees, yet are totally fine wasting days of productivity by not having a proper documentation process or practices.
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#13Needs (2011)
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#14If someone wanted to be such an archeologist but instead for figuring out how some code or project worked (where perhaps the only remaining thing was the compiled code and some limited documentation), what sort of role/position would that be?
To my mind it just seems like something one would get assigned or throw into when looking into improving a process similar to the company in this story, but perhaps I am missing something.
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#15[deleted]
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#16If someone wanted to be such an archeologist but instead for figuring out how some code or project worked (where perhaps the only remaining thing was the compiled code and some limited documentation), what sort of role/position would that be? To my mind it just seems like something one would get assigned or throw into when looking into improving a process similar to the company in this story, but perhaps I am missing…
If you're a strong technologist, ideally with some reverse engineering experience, and you befriend a bank CTO, you will probably be offered a job that is part this and part saving projects that are trying their best to jump off a series of cliffs.
Just make sure to set it up as a consulting gig and never, ever, work for a bank.
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#17This is something ive seen at three defense companies ive worked for. They will toss the new hires in bad times but hang onto the old timers and let them do as the please. The rto never applies to them and they horde like smaug. The best job in defense is to be one of these. Boeing made lip service to passing on knowledge but when it came to true core ppl they were never part of the process.
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#18If someone wanted to be such an archeologist but instead for figuring out how some code or project worked (where perhaps the only remaining thing was the compiled code and some limited documentation), what sort of role/position would that be? To my mind it just seems like something one would get assigned or throw into when looking into improving a process similar to the company in this story, but perhaps I am missing…
In "traditional" engineering, there are a lot of old code bases still in use that few people (if any) have a solid understanding of. I've seen code comments dating to the 70s. Often the code was "documented" in internal reports. Many of these reports are now lost. These reports are often incomplete or unclear when they can be found. Plus, what you read in the ancient reports may not be current.
The job ad will probably not directly say anything about code archaeology. If the job ad mentions some sort of in-house simulation software, and the organization is 50+ years old, I'd say it's a coin toss as to whether you'll have to be this sort of software archaeologist from time to time.
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#19Back up: https://archive.is/1AxnM
Thank you for your digital archeology.
Re: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling (2011)
#20I've explicitly written things down at work, starting with the sentence: "A note for future archeologists".