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submitted 7 months ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.zip

"We have a technical debt that stretches back many decades."

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[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 42 points 7 months ago

They adopted the system in 1998, when actually floppy floppies were already obsolete. Oof.

[-] Lwaxana@startrek.website 20 points 7 months ago

It's called proven technology sweaty.

[-] squeakycat@lemmy.ml 19 points 7 months ago

That's a measure of success to me. Systems that have run for so long and continue to run effectively are to be commended, not ridiculed.

The article quotes the agency as mentioning the floppies not being the biggest worry. I wish it went into more detail of what shortcomings the current system has and what improvements such a shift to more modern infra would bring.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

I like the part of the quote you omitted:

"We have to maintain programmers who are experts in the programming languages of the '90s in order to keep running our current system, so we have a technical debt that stretches back many decades," Tumlin told San Francisco's KQED in February 2023.

They say that as if most of the most popular languages in the '90s aren't still in common use today. I guess what he really means is that they managed to pick something that was obscure proprietary garbage even back then, and should've known better.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Well, it's increasingly difficult to find specific C experts.

Edit: downvotes from people who obviously don't work in my field

[-] Steve@startrek.website 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)
[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

Or you could just virtualize the machine in an emulator and run it from disk images. 🤷‍♂️

[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 months ago

To hard for the "fake it 'til you make it"ers of old

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

Yeah, that's what I want in safety-critical infrastructure: more abstractions and points of failure. Let's slap that on a RasPi while we're at it

[-] Steve@startrek.website 1 points 7 months ago
[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago
[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 9 points 7 months ago

what, its not like they are near a technical mecca of any kinda out there in cali, of course they would be decades out of date!

[-] Donjuanme@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

I'm 20 minutes away from multiple population centers, in Bay area California, and on a good night I get 4 mB/s download. We need public energy and data ASAP, private oligarchs are fucking us over so hard.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

There aren't even decent broadband options in Silicon Valley. None of the "innovations" actually make it out of the plush offices into the community.

[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 1 points 7 months ago

Sonic is offered around the bay area and silicon valley. It's fantastic. I sadly don't have it in my current place, but previously had their gigabit fiber


symmetric, uncapped, reliable, and north of 900Mbps on iperf (fast.com would claim 1.0Gbps).

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Yeah, finally, but obviously not ubiquitously. They never offered it in any of the places I lived there, either.

this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
92 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

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