100 ms·

Even if that's true, those are exceptional examples. They're rare. So why should we care?

cinntaile 5y ago
Old IBM mainframes in banks and government institutions aren't that rare I think. But I don't have any numbers to back this up.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  not rare at all. COBOL still runs the world, despite what many on this board think.
  - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
    COBOL is rare outside the USA and Western Europe, I'm pretty sure.
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      central banks all over are running on IBM.
lumost 5y ago
They are a sign of a deficiency in the tech business model. Maintenance is a bad business, and so the only way to keep things understood and working is to build new things. This is fine as long as the "in maintenance only" portion of the industry remains small. Which will only remain true while the industry is growing exponentially. However like industrials, there will eventually be a physical limit to how much better computer networks, microchips, web search, cameras and other activities can get. Once this happens growth in the core parts of the industry will slow, and more software will be in maintenance. However software components are both opaque and orders of magnitude more complex than physical parts. As an example, Losing practical knowledge of the linux kernel involves losing knowledge of ~27.8 million lines of code. There may come a time in a number of decades that getting a driver patched is an impractical activity due to the scarcity of knowledge ( or potentially even the ability to build the driver... )
- nradov 5y ago
  Linux drivers are already a mess, and have been since the beginning. But the problem is due to IP concerns by hardware vendors, not a lack of knowledge about the code base.
  - lumost 5y ago
    which makes the problem more likely to emerge when the various hardware companies stop developing new drivers due to lack of significant new hardware evolution. e.g. why update the nic drivers if the nic hasn't changed in 20 years? this could easily turn into "how do we even modify and release our companies nic driver?"
- andrey_utkin 5y ago
  > Maintenance is a bad business Could you please elaborate why? I would agree that such business has relatively low ROI. Still, for example, Linux distros and *BSD foundations are to an extent a maintenance business.
  - jsymolon 5y ago
    Operational Budget vs Capitalize Budget, for one. Build something new, affect bottom line directly vs maintenance. Blame the tax structure for placing an emphasis on new.
    - hyperman1 5y ago
      This is actually good news. It provides a lever for the government to change our entire culture (in a good way). Much easier than convincing every individual that maintenance is required.
      - andrey_utkin 5y ago
        Or bad news, that the govt's unreasonable bias is the reason why it is the optimal economic behavior to neglect maintenance?
pjerem 5y ago
Alas, those rare examples does includes nuclear power plants.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  That is probably less of a concern than most other things because the industry is so highly regulated that everything is formally specified and documented. Now guess what happens if we forget how to make something intrinsic to modern farming.
  - mellavora 5y ago
    like dirt? Not being snarky; just want to point out that current soil erosion rates due to modern farming mean the world will run out of dirt by the end of the century. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/verso2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/verso2/ https://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/ https://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-ru... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/topsoil-farming-agriculture-food-toxic-america https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/topsoil-farm...
jfoutz 5y ago
Reliance on deprecated behavior, but without the compiler warning. There may be some hidden risk out there, and we have no idea how much it'll cost to fix or replace. The example that springs to mind is the social security check printers. I think they wound up reading the wire voltages as checks were printing to duplicate the behavior for the y2k fix. Was urgent as many people relied on that income. There are rare events that you can't do much about up front, they're external. A pandemic might be a good example. There are other rare events you can simply avoid, but it's often tempting to just skip the maintenance and let someone else deal with it when it breaks. It's rare right? Not like we're going to get blamed, or even be around to have to deal with it.

Old IBM mainframes in banks and government institutions aren't that rare I think. But I don't have any numbers to back this up.

inter_netuser 5y ago
not rare at all. COBOL still runs the world, despite what many on this board think.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  COBOL is rare outside the USA and Western Europe, I'm pretty sure.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    central banks all over are running on IBM.

lumost 5y ago

They are a sign of a deficiency in the tech business model. Maintenance is a bad business, and so the only way to keep things understood and working is to build new things. This is fine as long as the "in maintenance only" portion of the industry remains small. Which will only remain true while the industry is growing exponentially. However like industrials, there will eventually be a physical limit to how much better computer networks, microchips, web search, cameras and other activities can get. Once this happens growth in the core parts of the industry will slow, and more software will be in maintenance. However software components are both opaque and orders of magnitude more complex than physical parts. As an example, Losing practical knowledge of the linux kernel involves losing knowledge of ~27.8 million lines of code. There may come a time in a number of decades that getting a driver patched is an impractical activity due to the scarcity of knowledge ( or potentially even the ability to build the driver... )

nradov 5y ago
Linux drivers are already a mess, and have been since the beginning. But the problem is due to IP concerns by hardware vendors, not a lack of knowledge about the code base.
- lumost 5y ago
  which makes the problem more likely to emerge when the various hardware companies stop developing new drivers due to lack of significant new hardware evolution. e.g. why update the nic drivers if the nic hasn't changed in 20 years? this could easily turn into "how do we even modify and release our companies nic driver?"
andrey_utkin 5y ago
> Maintenance is a bad business Could you please elaborate why? I would agree that such business has relatively low ROI. Still, for example, Linux distros and *BSD foundations are to an extent a maintenance business.
- jsymolon 5y ago
  Operational Budget vs Capitalize Budget, for one. Build something new, affect bottom line directly vs maintenance. Blame the tax structure for placing an emphasis on new.
  - hyperman1 5y ago
    This is actually good news. It provides a lever for the government to change our entire culture (in a good way). Much easier than convincing every individual that maintenance is required.
    - andrey_utkin 5y ago
      Or bad news, that the govt's unreasonable bias is the reason why it is the optimal economic behavior to neglect maintenance?

pjerem 5y ago

Alas, those rare examples does includes nuclear power plants.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
That is probably less of a concern than most other things because the industry is so highly regulated that everything is formally specified and documented. Now guess what happens if we forget how to make something intrinsic to modern farming.
- mellavora 5y ago
  like dirt? Not being snarky; just want to point out that current soil erosion rates due to modern farming mean the world will run out of dirt by the end of the century. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/verso2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/verso2/ https://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/ https://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-ru... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/topsoil-farming-agriculture-food-toxic-america https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/topsoil-farm...

jfoutz 5y ago

Reliance on deprecated behavior, but without the compiler warning. There may be some hidden risk out there, and we have no idea how much it'll cost to fix or replace. The example that springs to mind is the social security check printers. I think they wound up reading the wire voltages as checks were printing to duplicate the behavior for the y2k fix. Was urgent as many people relied on that income. There are rare events that you can't do much about up front, they're external. A pandemic might be a good example. There are other rare events you can simply avoid, but it's often tempting to just skip the maintenance and let someone else deal with it when it breaks. It's rare right? Not like we're going to get blamed, or even be around to have to deal with it.