Second Contract In Finance - My Thoughts

[Mich the Tester]

One of my last contracts back in the last century, I had to go into the server room with one of the PMs and an Ops guy to find out what was wrong with the server running our app. We misread the location and opened up a cabinet to find a rack of old IBM ATs. Half of 'em had died. There was a modem that looked like it go some infrequent traffic. There was no indication of what they were for. Ops guy say, "Frack knows what they are. Anyway, no my problem" and locks the cabinet up again.

There was no interest in finding out what they were for. They could still be there.

What a coincidence! I talked to a chap in a restaurant in Cannes having pointed him in the direction of a car park where he could safely store his Aston; said he'd retired to the Riviera having been an Ops man in an IBM server room. Glad to clear that one up!

[minestrone]

I found a document that described a core module in a large pension provider as...

"written in the 60s and 70s"
"unable to be rewritten as nobody knows how it works"

[Mich the Tester]

I found a document that described a core module in a large pension provider as...

"written in the 60s and 70s"
"unable to be rewritten as nobody knows how it works"

I have a little theory that the next major banking crisis could be a software crisis; bank loses tulipload of money in a system nobody knows or understands; back-ups fail due to untested rollback mechanisms; major tulip hits banking system. World blames 'software experts' when tulip hits the fan.

[HairyArsedBloke]

I have a little theory that the next major banking crisis could be a software crisis; bank loses tulipload of money in a system nobody knows or understands; back-ups fail due to untested rollback mechanisms; major tulip hits banking system. World blames 'software experts' when tulip hits the fan.

By which point the only people in the business are the Bob's so it will all be their fault.

Equally, all the skills that the west had would have gone so it the banks will be stuck with the Bob's even though they caused it.

[minestrone]

The best one is...

"can you check if that value is correct"

"well what is the calculation?"

"we don't know, can you not look in the program and see what it is meant to be doing?"

[Mich the Tester]

By which point the only people in the business are the Bob's so it will all be their fault.

Equally, all the skills that the west had would have gone so it the banks will be stuck with the Bob's even though they caused it.

To be fair on the Bobs, I´d sooner blame the senior management chappy at a major bank who said to me ´don´t bother testing it; testing´s a waste of time and money'.

[Mich the Tester]

The best one is...

"can you check if that value is correct"

"well what is the calculation?"

"we don't know, can you not look in the program and see what it is meant to be doing?"

unless you can invoice them for reverse engineering, but that'll be tough if you only have binaries.

I was once in a team that was asked to take a look at the code in a banking system to see what was going wrong with some orders it sent to the markets. We said 'sure, just show us the source code and we'll take a look', to which the response was 'erm, source code; what...?'

[Zippy]

The best one is...

"can you check if that value is correct"

"well what is the calculation?"

"we don't know, can you not look in the program and see what it is meant to be doing?"

I had a job like that once, but sadly not in banking.

[doodab]

I had a job like that once, but sadly not in banking.

I really hope it wasn't in aerospace or nuclear power...

[Zippy]

I really hope it wasn't in aerospace or nuclear power...

*cough*