2 ms·

And I would add, you are not an "expert" until you had to reverse engineer a program who's source disappeared a decade or more ago :) But an interesting articl

by jmclnx 2y ago

And I would add, you are not an "expert" until you had to reverse engineer a program who's source disappeared a decade or more ago :) But an interesting article for modern times.

pjc50 2y ago
In contrast to sibling comment: this is actually quite fun in small doses. Wouldn't like to have to do it for an entire product, but I've done some "competitive analysis" before.
droobles 2y ago
I had to do this once and, while I do recommend the experience for professional growth, it was not fun for the most part!
hindsightbias 2y ago
This is usually doable until it's DEWS/SAGE radar code from the 50's. That's what NASA started with and the last guy died in the 90s. We got every other subsystem off the mainframe, but had to keep it around for the radar stuff until 2004 or so.
- rramadass 2y ago
  I sense an interesting story. Details please ;-)
  - hindsightbias 2y ago
    https://www.baen.com/rip_moc https://www.baen.com/rip_moc 1990: https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/MCC%20Development%20History.pdf https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/MCC%20Development%2... Pirates: https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/the-nasa-pirates-that-transformed-mission-control/ https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/the-nasa-pirates-that-transformed... Head Pirate: https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/SSP/MuratoreJF_5-14-08.htm https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist... WEX/Display builder/etc: Even when I was there my young peers weren't too keen on legacy/back-end understanding. GUIs were the cool thing. I worked on something that touched many legacy subsystems so got to work with a lot of "dinosaurs" (what the Pirates called them). MCC testing was all AM shift, pirates/youts up front, retired controllers in the back. Test MOC took 30 minutes to recycle. I always sat in back if they'd let me.
bluedino 2y ago
Or the logic created by other staff that's long gone. "This is wrong!" Well, we actually do it that way because Frank told us to do it that way "Frank isn't even here anymore! That doesn't make sense! Let's just do it the right way." Three Weeks Later

by jmclnx 2y ago

And I would add, you are not an "expert" until you had to reverse engineer a program who's source disappeared a decade or more ago :) But an interesting article for modern times.

pjc50 2y ago

In contrast to sibling comment: this is actually quite fun in small doses. Wouldn't like to have to do it for an entire product, but I've done some "competitive analysis" before.

droobles 2y ago

I had to do this once and, while I do recommend the experience for professional growth, it was not fun for the most part!

hindsightbias 2y ago

This is usually doable until it's DEWS/SAGE radar code from the 50's. That's what NASA started with and the last guy died in the 90s. We got every other subsystem off the mainframe, but had to keep it around for the radar stuff until 2004 or so.

rramadass 2y ago
I sense an interesting story. Details please ;-)
- hindsightbias 2y ago
  https://www.baen.com/rip_moc https://www.baen.com/rip_moc 1990: https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/MCC%20Development%20History.pdf https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/MCC%20Development%2... Pirates: https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/the-nasa-pirates-that-transformed-mission-control/ https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/the-nasa-pirates-that-transformed... Head Pirate: https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/SSP/MuratoreJF_5-14-08.htm https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist... WEX/Display builder/etc: Even when I was there my young peers weren't too keen on legacy/back-end understanding. GUIs were the cool thing. I worked on something that touched many legacy subsystems so got to work with a lot of "dinosaurs" (what the Pirates called them). MCC testing was all AM shift, pirates/youts up front, retired controllers in the back. Test MOC took 30 minutes to recycle. I always sat in back if they'd let me.

bluedino 2y ago

Or the logic created by other staff that's long gone. "This is wrong!" Well, we actually do it that way because Frank told us to do it that way "Frank isn't even here anymore! That doesn't make sense! Let's just do it the right way." Three Weeks Later