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I see the point you're making, but you have to consider the other side of it as well. Most of these agencies are running ancient software, on ancient OSes, wit

I see the point you're making, but you have to consider the other side of it as well. Most of these agencies are running ancient software, on ancient OSes, with decades of kludges layered on top to address requirements that change every six months. It's not the precise, time-tested COBOL you're imagining. Think in terms of "enterprise-ready" languages with tons of obscure, expensive, and undocumented modules. No automated testing, no documented REST APIs, no version control or package management. Developing on top of these systems is extremely difficult and has lead to many high profile budget overruns-- Sometimes to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Keep in mind that the head of Social Security was actually called in front of congress to explain how things got so bad [1], and the prospect of using modern development processes seems like a pretty good idea. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-it-project-cost-300m-and-it-doesnt-work/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-it-project-cost...

tptacek 9y ago
This is common in the Fortune 500 as well. Plenty of IT and line of business development shops that build Kotlin apps and use React also have z-series cabinets in their data centers running code that has been nurtured for decades. If you think the business case for doing that hasn't been considered carefully, you're wrong. This isn't a fedgov pathology. It's a business process reality. Unit tests, version control and package management are nice to have, but 3 decades of reliably executed business process are more important.
- gowld 9y ago
  "reliably executed". https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/politics/veterans-administration-va/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/politics/veterans-administrat...
  - tptacek 9y ago
    That's a middlebrow dismissal. Obviously there are bad processes everywhere (including in industry). The VA is notoriously bad even for FedGov. That does not mean you can evaluate a line of business application based on whether it has version control and package management. To a pretty significant extent, any time an F-500 company procedurally cuts a recurring check, comparatively ancient mainframe code is implicated. You want to see chaos and calamity? Rewrite all those applications, or even a significant fraction of them, with modern processes. See what happens.

tptacek 9y ago

This is common in the Fortune 500 as well. Plenty of IT and line of business development shops that build Kotlin apps and use React also have z-series cabinets in their data centers running code that has been nurtured for decades. If you think the business case for doing that hasn't been considered carefully, you're wrong. This isn't a fedgov pathology. It's a business process reality. Unit tests, version control and package management are nice to have, but 3 decades of reliably executed business process are more important.

gowld 9y ago
"reliably executed". https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/politics/veterans-administration-va/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/politics/veterans-administrat...
- tptacek 9y ago
  That's a middlebrow dismissal. Obviously there are bad processes everywhere (including in industry). The VA is notoriously bad even for FedGov. That does not mean you can evaluate a line of business application based on whether it has version control and package management. To a pretty significant extent, any time an F-500 company procedurally cuts a recurring check, comparatively ancient mainframe code is implicated. You want to see chaos and calamity? Rewrite all those applications, or even a significant fraction of them, with modern processes. See what happens.