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Am GP, it is finance based, but not commercial finance. Most of the systems handle complex calculations. The system is a monolith that has been around for 15 y
by sirsinsalot 3y ago
Am GP, it is finance based, but not commercial finance.
Most of the systems handle complex calculations. The system is a monolith that has been around for 15 years or so.
It isn't cool. It isn't pretty. Lots of it would be better for a refactor, but absolute stability is the goal. Refactoring things may result in long-term cost savings, but with risk. The business has no risk appetite, so it doesn't make sense. If it works, it stays, however ugly and costly.
That isn't to say some things don't get refactored, but there's a strict business case that needs to be met. Usually if the system is under performing, error-prone or end-users want features/performance that can't be accommodated without a refactor.
It's nice. The latest framework isn't being integrated year after year, there's no microservices, nothing fancy.
It's java. It's tested. It works. It makes money. It pays.
- wruza 3y agoInteresting, I believe there is something to finance that allows or forces things this way. There’s much less fidget spinning and much more business in it for some reason.
- lazyasciiart 3y agoRegulations, I’m guessing.
- whstl 3y agoRegulations are a good excuse, but there is still a lot of fuckery in Finance apps, especially in the Fintech space. Stability is something that must be culturally hammered and enforced by leadership. If it's done by stakeholders, the app will look simple but still be a juggernaut of over-engineering underneath.
- SgtBastard 3y agoRegulations (as sibling comment mentioned) is one aspect, but also the cost of screwing up is real-world. A status quo system that isn’t screwing up has a much higher bar to replace where the risk that the replacement system will screw up. Much of the same reasoning and even more extremely applied, is medtech - hence why you see many medical imaging setups still obviously running a version of Windows XP.
- sirsinsalot 3y agoRegulation and risk. The same applied to government too. The cost (financial, legal, reputation) of certain classes of bugs is so high that avoiding those risks becomes top concern. One calculation issue, one buggy float operation means millions or billions in damage and the loss of your clients ... never to return ... because your name is tarnished. I actually think this is _wrong_ and we need better resiliency in finance to being able to roll-back transactions and rewind and replay with adjustments.