7 ms·

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

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 account be allowed to do the job." Likewise, the kind of people who are bidding on this project are certainly not the kind of people that should ever be allowed anywhere near the IRS' computer systems.

s2g 9y ago
> Something that the kids of IT today will never learn Why, because you're busy being condescending to teach? Software should be considered a system that needs ongoing care and maintenance, just like anything else.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
All programs by the government are ways to employ people. They can be ineffective or effective but it still makes whoever employed happy to vote for whoever made the job up.
stefan_ 9y ago
Having this stuff digitized is actually pretty nice. The German ELSTER is basically PDF forms on steroids; same tax forms you presumably used to fill out by hand but with input formatting, validation, basic sanity checks and it estimates what you'll pay / get back at the end of it all. Then you can even submit it online if you have registered for a private key. Of course the tax forms themselves are still insane.
mbell 9y ago
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).
- cpburns2009 9y ago
  Small development teams have a hard enough time with that. I can't imagine that is even remotely possible within the bureaucratic framework of a government agency.
- eberkund 9y ago
  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.
- mysterydip 9y ago
  The people in the trenches most likely prefer that (I know I did). The problem is convincing the people higher up to spend part of a tight budget (money and manhours) every year without an easily-defined return.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  > Or you can continuously keep your code / systems up to date Easy to say as a grunt, but businesses (and governments) are run by managers and accountants. What you describe is upgrading for upgrading's sake. If a system isn't broken, there's no point or financial reason to replace it. Imagine trying to upgrade a system with incredibly complex data on a BILLION users that has to work 24/7, then deal with massive data influx four times a year plus catastrophic data ingestion one time a year. And not only take in and sort those records, but validate the data and perform calculations based on rules that change almost monthly, and that sometimes must be applied to years-old data and sometimes not. Plus, you're dealing with people's money. You don't fuck around with people's money. It would be easier to merge Facebook and Google's databases.
  - s2g 9y ago
    Imagine if you were an airline that didn't bother to maintain planes. When you build software you should plan to maintain it. Bug fixes, features, upgrades, etc...
msla 9y ago
Yes, because nobody who's old now was ever a dumb kid.
jesusthatsgreat 9y ago
> Never replace anything unless the thing doing the replacing is better than the thing being replaced. The problem is 'better' is subjective. Plenty of mechanics will tell you older cars are better because they're easier to repair, don't require specialist machine diagnostics, have manual buttons / levers / knobs that are easier to troubleshoot than digital versions. To most drivers however, newer cars are better because they're more comfortable and convenient to drive around in. 'Better' means different things to different people.
- cafard 9y ago
  Modern cars in general get much better mileage and are much safer to drive in. (Yes, airbag shrapnel has happened.)
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    Only if you're driving forwards. The crash test rating arms race gave us vehicles we can't see out of then we backed over so many kids that the federal government mandated a rear camera in everything.
    - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
      I want to think that’s just consumers’ preferences shifting towards SUV and Crossover cars that necessarily have poor rear visibility. Nothing about having a good rear crumple-zone leads to restricting the size of the rear window or placement of the C-pillars.
      - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
        It's the deep seating position that really kills visibility. the higher (relative to the bottom of the windows) seating position in crossovers helps drive their sales a lot. Crossovers typically have equal or better rear visibility to the car they're based on because the higher seating position means you can look down at a steeper angle greatly reducing the maximum distance at which a kid height object is not visible to the driver.
occams_chainsaw 9y ago
Why wouldn't "the kids of IT today" ever learn that?
- dsr_ 9y ago
  Some of them will, by which point they won't be kids.
jaclaz 9y ago
>"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." ... which is a very good example of Catch 22 logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22_(logic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22_(logic) I personally prefer Groucho Marx : https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/04/18/groucho-resigns/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/04/18/groucho-resigns/ “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”
Lionsion 9y ago
> 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. This is factually wrong (at least for the most current effort): https://federalnewsradio.com/tom-temin-commentary/2018/01/irs-clutches-its-modernization-holy-grail/ https://federalnewsradio.com/tom-temin-commentary/2018/01/ir... An eight person IRS development team nearly finished building a replacement, but the main developers were hired on a special program to pay them at above-GSA rates, and that program expired before they could put it into production.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  Open-source it and we'll help with the fixes.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    And then we'll see how vicious the incumbent companies get. There's no FUD greater than government contractor FUD.
    - rbanffy 9y ago
      I say bring them out into the light. It's an excellent disinfectant.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    That would be a huge exploit/privacy risk.
    - heartbreak 9y ago
      Right because that's what we say about the Linux kernel too, right? If IRS is the maintainer, they still review changes. And so do all of us. If someone slips in an exploit, we'll catch it the same way every other open source project does.
      - 9y ago

s2g 9y ago

> Something that the kids of IT today will never learn Why, because you're busy being condescending to teach? Software should be considered a system that needs ongoing care and maintenance, just like anything else.

zitterbewegung 9y ago

All programs by the government are ways to employ people. They can be ineffective or effective but it still makes whoever employed happy to vote for whoever made the job up.

stefan_ 9y ago

Having this stuff digitized is actually pretty nice. The German ELSTER is basically PDF forms on steroids; same tax forms you presumably used to fill out by hand but with input formatting, validation, basic sanity checks and it estimates what you'll pay / get back at the end of it all. Then you can even submit it online if you have registered for a private key. Of course the tax forms themselves are still insane.

mbell 9y ago

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).

cpburns2009 9y ago
Small development teams have a hard enough time with that. I can't imagine that is even remotely possible within the bureaucratic framework of a government agency.
eberkund 9y ago
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.
mysterydip 9y ago
The people in the trenches most likely prefer that (I know I did). The problem is convincing the people higher up to spend part of a tight budget (money and manhours) every year without an easily-defined return.
reaperducer 9y ago
> Or you can continuously keep your code / systems up to date Easy to say as a grunt, but businesses (and governments) are run by managers and accountants. What you describe is upgrading for upgrading's sake. If a system isn't broken, there's no point or financial reason to replace it. Imagine trying to upgrade a system with incredibly complex data on a BILLION users that has to work 24/7, then deal with massive data influx four times a year plus catastrophic data ingestion one time a year. And not only take in and sort those records, but validate the data and perform calculations based on rules that change almost monthly, and that sometimes must be applied to years-old data and sometimes not. Plus, you're dealing with people's money. You don't fuck around with people's money. It would be easier to merge Facebook and Google's databases.
- s2g 9y ago
  Imagine if you were an airline that didn't bother to maintain planes. When you build software you should plan to maintain it. Bug fixes, features, upgrades, etc...

msla 9y ago

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

jesusthatsgreat 9y ago

> Never replace anything unless the thing doing the replacing is better than the thing being replaced. The problem is 'better' is subjective. Plenty of mechanics will tell you older cars are better because they're easier to repair, don't require specialist machine diagnostics, have manual buttons / levers / knobs that are easier to troubleshoot than digital versions. To most drivers however, newer cars are better because they're more comfortable and convenient to drive around in. 'Better' means different things to different people.

cafard 9y ago
Modern cars in general get much better mileage and are much safer to drive in. (Yes, airbag shrapnel has happened.)
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Only if you're driving forwards. The crash test rating arms race gave us vehicles we can't see out of then we backed over so many kids that the federal government mandated a rear camera in everything.
  - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
    I want to think that’s just consumers’ preferences shifting towards SUV and Crossover cars that necessarily have poor rear visibility. Nothing about having a good rear crumple-zone leads to restricting the size of the rear window or placement of the C-pillars.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      It's the deep seating position that really kills visibility. the higher (relative to the bottom of the windows) seating position in crossovers helps drive their sales a lot. Crossovers typically have equal or better rear visibility to the car they're based on because the higher seating position means you can look down at a steeper angle greatly reducing the maximum distance at which a kid height object is not visible to the driver.

occams_chainsaw 9y ago

Why wouldn't "the kids of IT today" ever learn that?

dsr_ 9y ago
Some of them will, by which point they won't be kids.

jaclaz 9y ago

>"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." ... which is a very good example of Catch 22 logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22_(logic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22_(logic) I personally prefer Groucho Marx : https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/04/18/groucho-resigns/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/04/18/groucho-resigns/ “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”

Lionsion 9y ago

> 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. This is factually wrong (at least for the most current effort): https://federalnewsradio.com/tom-temin-commentary/2018/01/irs-clutches-its-modernization-holy-grail/ https://federalnewsradio.com/tom-temin-commentary/2018/01/ir... An eight person IRS development team nearly finished building a replacement, but the main developers were hired on a special program to pay them at above-GSA rates, and that program expired before they could put it into production.

rbanffy 9y ago
Open-source it and we'll help with the fixes.
- rhizome 9y ago
  And then we'll see how vicious the incumbent companies get. There's no FUD greater than government contractor FUD.
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    I say bring them out into the light. It's an excellent disinfectant.
- DrScump 9y ago
  That would be a huge exploit/privacy risk.
  - heartbreak 9y ago
    Right because that's what we say about the Linux kernel too, right? If IRS is the maintainer, they still review changes. And so do all of us. If someone slips in an exploit, we'll catch it the same way every other open source project does.
    - 9y ago