The IRS already nearly developed a system to automatically translate their mainframe assembler logic into Java and check its correctness, but the main developer

The IRS already nearly developed a system to automatically translate their mainframe assembler logic into Java and check its correctness, but the main developer was hired on some special kind of program (to bypass the government salary structure) which could not be renewed before the project was completed. Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16377329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16377329 (The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java) https://federalnewsradio.com/tom-temin-commentary/2018/01/irs-clutches-its-modernization-holy-grail/ https://federalnewsradio.com/tom-temin-commentary/2018/01/ir...: > Now, IRS is on the verge of solving this problem. The solution was engineered by a group of about eight people. And not under a multi-hundred-million-dollar systems integration contract. A leader of the group was Jian Wang, a Chinese emigre who is now a naturalized citizen. Wang told me his solution isn’t a silver bullet but rather a carefully worked-out methodology. It has three components so potentially powerful the IRS has filed patent applications for them. > I say “was” because he’s left the agency, and the status of the project is dark. > Wang was working under streamlined critical pay authority the agency has had since its landmark 1998 restructuring. It gave the IRS 40 slots under which it could pay temporary, full-time employees higher than GS rates. Former Commissioner John Koskinen pointed out Congress did not re-up this authority in 2013, despite his entreaties to former Congressman Jason Chaffetz’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. > “The last one ran out this past summer,” Koskinen said. The departures included Wang. He says he applied to become a GS-15 or Senior Executive Service member so he could see through the assembler-to-Java project. But his approval didn’t come through until a week before his employment authority expired. By then he’d accepted another job. Wang says he had a house to pay for, kids to educate. Koskinen confirms the agency wanted to convert Wang. But the process of approval from Treasury headquarters and the Office of Personnel Management simply took too long. Note: this is a repost of a comment I made previously at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16859012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16859012. This system has come up in the news a lot recently, but the articles are usually frustratingly vague the effort to replace it, which seems really interesting. There are so many critical mainframe programs running in business and government, and it's not an easy job to replace them. For instance, my employer has been working at it for 20 years.