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  • Paul Cantrellinthehands@hachyderm.io
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:49 PM

    I urge you to listen to the riveting and wonderful radio feature about what happens when you try to build a make-or-break project on a ridiculously tight timeline:

    99percentinvisible.org/episode

    The page has summary text, but listen if you can. I’ve heard very few instances of a developer speaking so candidly and with such self-awareness about what it feels like to be part of a failing software project.

    Listen. Then imagine that instead of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, it’s social security for the entire USA.

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  • Paul Cantrellinthehands@hachyderm.io
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:51 PM

    I always give that story as an assignment to my Software Design and Development students. One of the things we talk about is that if the developer •hadn’t• managed to build the game, if the project had collapsed at any point before release, it probably would have saved the company.

    The worst possible outcome here is that these DOGEbags manage to build •something• and actually think it works.

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  • Paul Cantrellinthehands@hachyderm.io
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:29 PM

    Two things that are not mutually exclusive:

    - These people don’t care who they hurt, and would view creating chaos and destroying Social Security as a success.

    - These people are so reckless, arrogant, and stupid that they actually think they can do this.

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  • cwicseolforcwicseolfor@urbanists.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:49 PM

    @inthehands I thought this had started already, when they mentioned large sections of the codebase had been overwritten or deleted at the Treasury.

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  • 𝚝𝚓𝚠thomasjwebb@mastodon.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:57 PM

    @inthehands that would be not just disastrous for social security itself but for the entire software industry. The damage could happen even if they fail to actually replace anything but simply say they did it. A bunch of managers and investors are suddenly going to have absolutely absurd beliefs about what's possible in development. So many people are so credulous towards Musk because they want to believe him.

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  • 🔏 Matthias Wiesmannthias@mastodon.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:08 PM

    @inthehands I learnt this at work as the “no heroes” principle.
    And these days, if there is a hero, he or she will be a Schindler, will look like an arsehole and act secretly.

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  • Johnjohnzajac@dice.camp
    Mar 28, 2025, 6:34 PM

    @inthehands

    What we're experiencing is the natural implosion of an unsustainable system, and I don't mean Social Security, I mean the US government under neoliberal and corporate rule.

    Social Security and Medicare have been untouchable because the political class knew that it impacted too many white middle class people.

    But Trump et al. are ideologues who don't understand that consequences can exist *even for them*. So they're fucking around with the bull.

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  • GhostOnTheHalfShellGhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai
    Mar 29, 2025, 1:06 PM

    @inthehands

    They have every intention of doing so. They are intent on obliterating the United States and that means obliterating everything the US public has built for their own well-being.

    Just as with everything else about billionaires, they are masters of having a stake in something and taking it all for themselves.

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  • Andyadeese@hachyderm.io
    Mar 28, 2025, 8:12 PM

    @inthehands just when I think I can’t have a lower opinion of Elon Musk he does something like this.

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  • Saupreiss #Präparat500Saupreiss@pfalz.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:53 PM

    @inthehands

    Depends on what your priorities are.
    I believe it’s a pretty bright idea when you want to ensure those depending on it won‘t receive funding but to avoid direct accountability for what is inevitably going to Happen.

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  • huntingdonhuntingdon@mstdn.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:54 PM

    @inthehands

    Rewriting code on the fly, in machines responsible for trillions of dollars in transactions, which tens of millions depend on to survive? What could possibly go wrong, except to bankrupt those not already wealthy. Do Trump and Musk think this will affect only grandma and grandpa? It will tank the economy, but that's the least of its problems.

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  • Don Whitesidedonw@mastodon.coffee
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:56 PM

    @inthehands There was never any doubt that these were not serious people and that they have zero concept of what it means to create something critical. But the failed total-rewrite is a complete cliche in the industry for good reason! How is a crew this terminally online not aware of this?

    They're the Therac25 Appreciation Society and nobody will convince me otherwise.

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  • elala@nrw.socialelala@nrw.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:58 PM

    @inthehands
    Is it possible for the smallest units (municipalities, districts) to somehow save the data for those for whom they are directly responsible, so that at least someone can later trace who has which claims and can assert them?

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  • Bill Hookersennoma@chaos.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 4:59 PM

    @inthehands Just please, for the love of all that is good and holy, let there be one adult somewhere in the mix who makes sure the existing code is backed up safely.

    Because you're 100% right, this is the stupidest idea yet from a group of people whose footnote in history will read "Oh yeah, those dickheads."

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  • Bill Hookersennoma@chaos.social
    Mar 29, 2025, 12:38 AM

    @MarvClowder @inthehands

    I think the old conundrum doesn't apply here. These arseholes are both evil AND stupid. They'll do damage whether they achieve their scummy fascist goals or just break a bunch of stuff in the attempt.

    Take the current example: the goal appears to be to install a new, fascist, system, but the outcome is likely to be no system at all. Either way, we're fucked, and our only option is to stop them.

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  • Marta Threadbarecygnathreadbare@retro.pizza
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:01 PM

    @inthehands From the dude who ended up in Paypal and wanted the engineers to migrate the entire thing from Unix to Windows NT... this is on brand.

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  • GhostOnTheHalfShellGhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:03 PM

    @inthehands

    The goals of billionaires is not to rewrite government functions, but to destroy government to obliterate the nation.

    And if you think about it, that makes what what they are doing fully consistent. They may fantasize that they can do government better as authoritarian nut jobs but every time they’ve ever tried their insane libertarian ideas it’s ended in failure.

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  • NiColesStreetPotholeColesStreetPothole@weatherishappening.network
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:07 PM

    @inthehands
    When I put my conspiracy hat on, I think about Musk et al. writing into the system a bunch of fictitious people to receive checks, or maybe boosting MAGA checks and lessening funds for folks in blue states.

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  • GhostOnTheHalfShellGhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:07 PM

    @inthehands

    And of course, when they obliterate everything like this will very quickly understand just what AI is for.

    The project simply exist to legitimize annihilating people people’s lives, killing them, killing men, women, children, stepping stones to their absolute rule in this little fantasy nightmare they called the network state.

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  • Salem's LotSalemsLot@mastodon.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:08 PM

    @inthehands translation to real terms is helpful. They want an intentionally failed software project. And use the failed result instead of working software. Because Fascism despises the poor.

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  • Klaus SteinLapizistik@social.tchncs.de
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:11 PM

    @inthehands
    Let me guess: they will end up with a broken new system with the old system running in parallel but a few bits are now interconnected and you can't touch either without everything going boom?

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  • CohenTheBluecohentheblue@ohai.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:14 PM

    @inthehands Success was never the goal, buring everything is so people become increasingly overwhelmed or radicalized.

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  • Sean Eric Fagankithrup@wandering.shop
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:07 PM

    @inthehands Also, it's not just *one codebase*. It's multiple jobs that read data, process, and write it out, for the next step in the whole system.

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  • Fi 🏳️‍⚧️munin@infosec.exchange
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:17 PM

    @inthehands @alice

    I think that characterizing COBOL as 'archaic' is not fair.

    Yes, it's not the kind of modern language that most people program in - but it remains fit for the very specific purpose for which it was invented: extremely reliable, consistent, code that remains functional with little to no maintenance for years - decades! - at a time.

    Reliability is a desirable quality in infrastructural codebases.

    Changing it to something else merely because it's old has no merit - it's creating unnecessary work, and the end result will absolutely not be as reliable as the system it is replacing.

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  • RootWyrm 🇺🇦:progress:rootwyrm@weird.autos
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:48 PM

    @munin @inthehands @alice it's not just fair, it's absolutely FALSE and misleading.

    I am very much an expert in the topic, yes. Very, VERY much so.

    COBOL is a dead reliable language, and anything 20 years old, means EVERYTHING about it is fully understood. There are no surprises, no unknowns, no failures.

    Which is why companies still make COBOL compilers for things like POWER9, z16+, and Red Hat. Even though z16 is fully backwards compatible.

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  • RootWyrm 🇺🇦:progress:rootwyrm@weird.autos
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:53 PM

    @munin @inthehands @alice it's also a fundamental misunderstanding that COBOL was intended to require little to no maintenance.
    COBOL's currently at IEC 1989:2023. Yes, 2023.
    The real intent was a portable, data processing language, that was *comprehensible* in an age where assembly involved wire-wrap.
    It was meant to be portable and MAINTAINABLE rather than 'no maintenance.'

    Which is how you got monoliths. Because it *is* maintainable and extendable, easily.

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  • RootWyrm 🇺🇦:progress:rootwyrm@weird.autos
    Mar 28, 2025, 8:38 PM

    @lol @henrik @munin @inthehands @alice fun, and I swear to you, completely true story from my experiences.

    We were migrating an old AS/400-based COBOL application. Extremely mission critical. It wasn't going so great, and everyone who had worked on it was retired.

    One of the developers said "let me give it a try." No prior COBOL, at all. Sat down with the source and the compiler manual, and had it fixed in a day.

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  • Kzad_BhatKzad_Bhat@chaos.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:19 PM

    @inthehands I agree with your statement but I have to say your allegation that THERE IS any leadership to be seen in the current hive of locusts harvesting the government for profit..

    They still believe a government is there to be profitable and not maximize services for the people it SERVES. Government SERVES and doesnt profit.

    BY the PEOPLE, FOR the PEOPLE. No king, no emporer, no foreign born dictator.

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  • Joel VanderWerf 🐧joelvanderwerf@mastodon.social
    Mar 28, 2025, 5:26 PM

    @inthehands What if the "AI" just emits a COBOL interpreter in Java, bound with the COBOL source itself, and so it works in all small test cases, but fails at scale?

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