3 ms·

Long story: because changing identifiers is a considerable refactoring, and it takes coordination with multiple worldwide distributed partners to transition saf

Long story: because changing identifiers is a considerable refactoring, and it takes coordination with multiple worldwide distributed partners to transition safely from the old to the new system, all to avoid a hypothetical issue some software engineer came up with Short story: money. It costs money to do things well.

ftxbro 3y ago
> Long story: because changing identifiers is a considerable refactoring is this what refactoring means
- NBJack 3y ago
  Yes. It would cascade into: Changes in how ATCs operate Changes in how pilots operate Changes in how airplanes receive these instructions (including the flight software itself, safety systems, etc.) Changes in how airplanes are tested Changes in how pilots are trained Etc. In this case, the refactoring requires changes to hardware, software, training, manufacturing, and humans.
  - ftxbro 3y ago
    does refactoring mean literally any non-local change even just like changing a variable name, or does it usually mean some kind of structural or architectural non-local change
  - deadfish 3y ago
    Pretty sure that is still not the meaning of refactoring. As I understand it refactoring should mean no changes to the external interface but changes to how it is implemented internally.
    - LelouBil 3y ago
      You could see it as the whole international flight system being refactored, consumers will still use planes like before
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - NBJack 3y ago
      We can pontificate on how to define the scope of a system here. I will only state that, from the perspective of a consumer, you could consider this a Service on which the interface of find flight, book flight, etc. would appear to be the same while the connections internal to each of the above modules would have to account for the change. Functionally, I suppose it's the equivalent of upgrading an ID field that was originally declared as an unsigned 32 bit integer to a wider 64 bit representation. We may not be changing anything fundametal in the functionality, but every boundary interface, protocol, and storage mechanism must now suffer through a potentially painful modification.

ftxbro 3y ago

> Long story: because changing identifiers is a considerable refactoring is this what refactoring means

NBJack 3y ago
Yes. It would cascade into: Changes in how ATCs operate Changes in how pilots operate Changes in how airplanes receive these instructions (including the flight software itself, safety systems, etc.) Changes in how airplanes are tested Changes in how pilots are trained Etc. In this case, the refactoring requires changes to hardware, software, training, manufacturing, and humans.
- ftxbro 3y ago
  does refactoring mean literally any non-local change even just like changing a variable name, or does it usually mean some kind of structural or architectural non-local change
- deadfish 3y ago
  Pretty sure that is still not the meaning of refactoring. As I understand it refactoring should mean no changes to the external interface but changes to how it is implemented internally.
  - LelouBil 3y ago
    You could see it as the whole international flight system being refactored, consumers will still use planes like before
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - NBJack 3y ago
    We can pontificate on how to define the scope of a system here. I will only state that, from the perspective of a consumer, you could consider this a Service on which the interface of find flight, book flight, etc. would appear to be the same while the connections internal to each of the above modules would have to account for the change. Functionally, I suppose it's the equivalent of upgrading an ID field that was originally declared as an unsigned 32 bit integer to a wider 64 bit representation. We may not be changing anything fundametal in the functionality, but every boundary interface, protocol, and storage mechanism must now suffer through a potentially painful modification.