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The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

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Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#141

Post by jseliger »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #25
jacquesm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big trick is the proposal itself. Writing that is only possible if you are already tied in at all kinds of levels. I've seen some of these tenders up close, the companies that land the deals submit phone book sized proposals to tenders that are officially open but actually closed unless you are in a very select circle already. It's not uncommon for the proposal writer to then pass on the actual work to a whole sl…

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.

Are you saying this is how contracts are awarded on FedBiz Ops?

I do grant writing for nonprofit and public agencies, along with some research-based businesses, and people interested in getting into this sort of thing will contact us, or people like us.

We're a little like lawyers: it is possible to do everything right, but it's very hard and unlikely if it's your first rodeo.

To take one small example: when you submit a budget, is it a program budget or a total project budget? Err and your application may be disqualified. Or consider indirect cost rates: http://seliger.com/2016/05/16/federally-approved-indirect-co... .

Again, either of these things are small, but multiply them x1000 and suddenly you'll understand why organizations hire us!

Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#143

Post by dajohnson89 »

CryoLogic wrote: post #10

Funny how it's always the same companies producing code for the government based on political relationships - but the outcome of government software is always so bad.

Does anyone know who is the prime contractor for this particular engagement?

Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#144

Post by dajohnson89 »

nicolaslem wrote: post #131
codemusings wrote: post #81

One has to wonder whether it really makes sense to port instead of taking a look at the workflow and simply implement it from scratch.

I maintain a code base written by others and I fight this feeling all the time. If (re)writing software has taught me anything is that sentences that start with "simply" or "just" actually mean that you don't fully understand the problem.

To be fair, there's a tendency to fight starting from scratch, on the (arguably incorrect) assumption that starting over introduces higher risk, and greater time & cost.

Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#145

Post by theptip »

FigBug wrote: post #53
TimJYoung wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you manually convert the assembler, or automate it ? With regard to manual conversions, I'm with you 100% - no thanks. :-) But, my understanding is that the bulk of the work done in this case was done by a conversion tool that was designed and developed by a group of 8 people led by the gentleman referred to in the article (Jian Wang). The conversion tool project was the work that I was referring to in my comment…

Yes, manually. I missed that distinction, building the tool could be fun, but verifying it works would be a huge pain. Shouldn't be too hard to write test cases for tax code.

> Shouldn't be too hard to write test cases for tax code.

I would disagree here -- like timezones, tax software has the disadvantage of being both extremely boring, and very fiddly (thus requiring close attention). This combination makes it very hard to maintain the concentration that's required to write exhaustive tests.

Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#146

Post by chx »

jfoutz wrote: post #120
jhayward wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This suggestion is pretty innocent of practical knowledge of the problem. Simply extracting the control structure of the assembly via automation is a huge win. This type of assembly is incredibly dense - it was written for machines with at most, 100's of K of memory. It relies on highly non-local side effects which are very dependent on the data. Things like a reference to a status register bit that was possibly set…

you could also just dust off the original specification. code up whatever it's supposed to do, then special case all of the junk that doesn't match.

> you could also just dust off the original specification.

You must be new here. What specification? Oh dear.

Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#147

Post by SiempreViernes »

jfoutz wrote: post #120
jhayward wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This suggestion is pretty innocent of practical knowledge of the problem. Simply extracting the control structure of the assembly via automation is a huge win. This type of assembly is incredibly dense - it was written for machines with at most, 100's of K of memory. It relies on highly non-local side effects which are very dependent on the data. Things like a reference to a status register bit that was possibly set…

you could also just dust off the original specification. code up whatever it's supposed to do, then special case all of the junk that doesn't match.

You did read the bit that said the current system is the accumulation of almost 60 years of changing tax legislation, right?

Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#148

Post by gbacon »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #82
beachy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intestinal fortitude needed to prepare a proposal for these mega projects is enormous. I always end up with a gut churning feeling that no one is even going to read my work (which is interrupting any work on real projects), or that some back hander will result in a not level playing field.

Do people read them? If it's really a phone-sized book, I assume that there's some sort of algorithm, whether run by a person or a computer, that is just looking for things to check off a list.

Sometimes from debriefs, it is clear that they at best skimmed. Therefore the job of the proposal writer is to make the evaluator's job easy and to make the reader eager to turn the page, e.g., no walls of text just like on reddit or Hacker News.

Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#149

Post by gbacon »

robertha wrote: post #77
ryanmarsh wrote: post #25

Earlier 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.

I just registered on SAM and submitted a bid (something unrelated to this), but no idea what I was doing, I mean I put together a plan, had meaningful past performance, but overall I'm just hoping for the best. Would you happen to have any resources you followed? Or, suggestions that you believe led you to submitting a successful bid?

Was your bid on the recent SBIR/STTR solicitation by chance?

Re: The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java

#150

Post by phaedrus »

monocasa wrote: post #46

> in theory, there’s no way to translate assembler code. They way it runs is not how it reads Wat?

I actually thought that sounds like an elegant starting premise (on the part of Jian Wang). That is, instead of starting with the assumption that you can translate it, start with the assumption that you can't (directly) translate it (and ask, "well then what can you do?") I believe a consequence of Rice's Theorem is that the quoted statement is more or less correct. However the technique of translating it to a simpler intermediate language, and moreover factoring out data as an explicit and separate stream, changes an intractable problem into a not-quite-intractable one. I'm pretty sure I've seen a pure-theory computer science paper, recently, which applies a similar technique on a completely different problem, but I can't remember where I saw it.
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