chatterboxkpop
98228
2373
20
Source: https://xkcd.com/2347/
Sep 6, 2020 8:14 PM
chatterboxkpop
98228
2373
20
Source: https://xkcd.com/2347/
gwhh
I do t get this drawing at all. Please explain.
PhailRaptor
That little piece from 2003 is all that's holding the rest up. It would take very little for it to fail, bringing the whole thing down.
MidwestGamer69
Any legacy system.
The701
Yeah this isn't just digital infrastructure. Physical and legal infrastructure too. "Why's this here? It's barely doing anything!" ...Uh oh.
CyberAkuma
Replace that 2003 bit with a 40+ year old Unix mainframe and you get the modern infrastructure of most current major corporations today...
Mossanony
MS Outlook
onthe6ball
even if there are only 3 lines, sometime, the code will have to be maintained.
HellNoIWontFixYourComputer
I feel this in my soul any time I walk into a new office space, there is always a legacy procedure someone is upholding that is vital
UserNameCorrupted
The DoD Pay and Leave system is still run on a "Green Screen" program. It's been too long since I used it, so I don't remember the name.
HellNoIWontFixYourComputer
Not just in the digital space either, people out there doing things by rote that it can be mistaken as unimportant by someone new.
justamanwhoknowshowtofeel
Totally. Everything‘s getting so complex but people rarely map out the interdependencies that present weaknesses
OopsPoops
This is why I ask "why?" Try to figure out why something exists before messing with it. Always sandbox new implementations.
freedom4scale
Sigh. Legacy systems
nantukoprime
MUMPS and COBOL still exist. If the expert dies or quits...
[deleted]
[deleted]
nantukoprime
As an integration guy, I learned 'you need an expert, not me' eventually gets the message across.
s8whiskey
I'm sure you're head hunted for projects
NeoHelios
SSUPDATE
erbiumyttriumytterbium
Time zone database was. Don't know now.
Sallysalvo
Never forget PuTTY.
INeverWaitForIt
PuTTY is still huge in healthcare.
BenSnow97
I don't have too much experience with it because I'm so offended by the mere notion that you need a third-party program to connect to an >
BenSnow97
SSH server on Windows that I installed an entire Ubuntu (from the MS Store, that was one weird fucking day) which I use mostly just for that
n0gal
You make Linux users look bad.
n0rs
Windows has built in SSH now, IIRC.
BenSnow97
TIL. That's awesome
JMaxGarage
My team. My job.
CountSonny
Too true
AaronNathanielD
I beat this Angry Bird level.
2015Camry
That fully explains the tech behind the virtual school launch in NC.
TheobromineAddict
I still get frequent requests to update Java, which I ignore. Am I going to break the Internet?
MarkRavingMad
"They're using this for WHAT?!?!?!"
eovsvin
Somewhere something important is running on flash
HeadedForEternity
Cold motherfucking fusion. Damn it to hell.
enybi
I have friends who work for UK government and they still have IE7 on some machines in order to run older web-based programs.
Xenarion
I've seen the new system in local busses, installed a few years ago, running on Windows XP.
PrisonDonkey
Not for much longer. Isn't Flash just full on going away end of the year?
PhailRaptor
Chrome has been telling me all year that Flash will no longer be supported this December. Shits gonna get real in January.
slinkydust
No longer *available to download*
Xenarion
Pretty sure it's not gonna work in Chrome. You can still download it for use directly in your PC.
PhailRaptor
The verbiage in the warning banner has always been "supported"
elect86
Fucking true, and assholes never learn
Markuspsyches
They likely used it for a simple job, unaware others would build on top of their work, who'd not know how shaky the footing was under them.
Vengeraxe
I've worked at 4 companies now, that in the IT department, it's held together by one fat smelly guy with some code he made in the 80's.../1
Vengeraxe
scares the shit out of me if he has a heart attack, I dislike the older coders who hold a company at ransom for this kind of shit.
Vengeraxe
and no, it's not always "the company wont let us upgrade" bullshit, I've been told outright it was job security.
ASneakyTurtle
my proposal to upgrade our inventory system to barcodes was denied by IT cause they didn’t want to connect/maintain the scanner equipment
TractorEngineer
I don’t know why, but scanners are the worst item to try and pry from my IT dept. They just don’t like giving them up.
Vengeraxe
My best was trying to cinvince the uppers that taking the 15+ internal web pages to a company wiki was better. Was rage shit upon.
Diekman
Are there any known examples of this?
mikeatike
Every single company has one of these. Big ones have lots.
hammersquirrel
Heartbleed
dancinshroom
Heartbleed was a vulnerability in OpenSSL. Hes is really asking for examples of cornerstone software when removed topple massive projects
hammersquirrel
The lesson with Heartbleed was that the chunk of internet activity that’s encrypted through OpenSSL was being maintained by 1.5 men
BenSnow97
Lots. You could probably even write some code that crawls npm and analyzes dependency trees to look for these, ultimately even becoming one
DarkSock
preparationh67
Iirc parts of the network time protocol
illongruci
curl
znuff
openssl was another - thankfully things have changed now
PenguinPete
Um... Literally all of technology history.
Kralzaug
Dot
DemSumBigAssRidges
My dad wrote software for an O&G company back in the early 80s. They kept him around until literally last year to maintain it.
NullifiedMatrixEntry
Winrar
Everfearful
VHA records, scheduling and logistics are being run from a DOS-based, monochrome, keyboard only system with the occasional GUI duct taped on
RowanUnderwood
I can think of two just right off the top of my head. And I'm just a lowly peon.
indolent
What are they?
RowanUnderwood
On the off chance my boss is reading this I prefer not to say. Never understood folks that post job-losing info on social media . . .
wersting
oooh yes....
Gaylepod
California's power grid, for one.
Vesane
There's this company in Australia called Telstra, the equivalent of AT&T, built entirely like this
ratcamper
A lot of our local phone infrastructure is / was still running on PMG infrastructure. So there is NBN Running on 60yo phone line.
stinkingyeti
Yep, when i worked IT support for Virgin Australia, the zero weight fuel system stopped working and grounded all Virgin planes for hours.
CptJohnYossarian
WinRAR
thecleaningladyfiredme
Google "javascript left pad incident"
Grumposstuff
Since '92 of code written in the early 80's here. Lots of old code still exists. Changed, but the base is still the same.
heyyou
An old navigation system called LORAN, was pre GPS. Was only accurate to ~100ft. They shut it down thinking noone was using it. 1/2
heyyou
Cell companies used it for timing & shipping companies were using it to track trucks. Brought it back up 3hrs later. Taken offline 2010. 2/2
SomeDetroitGuy
The best example was the left-pad incident. The function left-pad was part of JavaScript, used by basically EVERYTHING on the Internet. The
SomeDetroitGuy
author got pissed because another of his functions was forcibly removed from NPM (a public code manager for JavaScript) so he pulled ALL of
Mirawatts
More specifically Kik.com threatened to sue him and NPM for the name rights. The coder had a pet project called Kik. NPM caved to Kik.com...
Mirawatts
...and the coder said if NPM will gladly give away his work to anyone with a lawyer then he wants no part of them. Then NPM reposted his...
Mirawatts
...deleted work, against his will and without consent.
SomeDetroitGuy
his code from NPM including left-pad, which had been used some 2.5 million times in other apps across the internet causing them all to break
SomeDetroitGuy
If you want more details, here they are: https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/
JonSnowNotedWindmillExpert
Melbournes public transport monitoring software is all controlled by a program written in the early 80s. It used to take rooms full of (1)
JonSnowNotedWindmillExpert
(2) servers to operate and now it’s all running on one emulated box. If it ain’t broke don’t fuck with it!
twfeline
Back when IBM's hard discs were epoxy coated, one guy retired, and they couldn't coat the discs properly. He had to un-retire to train them.
copingcabana
The entire banking industry is written in Cobol.
Grumposstuff
All ATM's use it as far as I know. Its transactional, just like your web page.
SwaggimirPutin
Can confirm. Work in the baking industry. Half of our teller application runs in a program from windows 98, the other half is on a DOS sys
JG9189
I'm not sure if I should be happy or terrified by this
copingcabana
Terrified. Unless you like relying on programming languages that haven't been taught in 20 years
jebascho
Imgur's servers. I know it's not an original joke, but it fits.
JDoggqx
Arcanum3000
Package owners have removed heavily relied-upon packages from npm, causing Node.js stacks to topple. This has happened more than once.
FirstAidPoetry
Stock analytics bureau. Maintained DOS machines that ran undocumented magic software on incoming data. No backups, no fail safes.
CPatricoo
I used a popular CAD for designing kitchens. The 3D modeling for many of these multi-million corporations was done by this one guy somewhere
rocketimpossible
NTP
ASneakyTurtle
At my first job, I took over for a guy maintaining a cost sheet in our ERP for fix assets to track inflation that dated back to 1972
twozerooz
Read it all, still confused. If all these companies had the inflation index for every year(because you sold it to them), then couldn't you
twozerooz
Just ask for it and start indexing again? Worst case scenario you lose one single year and have to estimate it.
ASneakyTurtle
Yes and no, inflation data buyers paid monthly fee cause of our historic record of honest reporting and belief we would be
ASneakyTurtle
around in twenty or more years. If you mess up, lie or appear to be struggling they abandon you and it’s impossible to regain their trust.
NikoB
That’s some advanced Erotic Role Playing
ASneakyTurtle
New CFO outsourced our IT and than micro manage everyone and eliminate nonessential tasks. He told me to stop updating it (biannually)
ASneakyTurtle
And was just an automated script loading up last purchase price per piece and date. Then deleted to free up space/streamline
ASneakyTurtle
Well we have been selling that inflation into to the US Government, serval colleges and multiple financial companies for a lot of money
ASneakyTurtle
A LOT OF MONEY! We missed all of our financial goals for the rest of the year. We got sued by everyone. Had to hire IT forensic experts to
Rokin123
Worked at a Top Fortune 100 company with massive resources and tech capabilities, 20+yr employee ran a process on a computer under their 1/2
Billis75
We used to have a system (fed regulated) that if it went down would result in fines. We had a laptop to simulate its signal if it crashed.
Rokin123
2/2 desk that “released” all the purchase orders each day to suppliers. If they didn’t transmit, you emailed this person to manually kick
HootSloot
VaultGirl69
A lot of gov't contract jobs for small projects that need 1 IT person. They end up doing them forever. People forget they exist.
BenSnow97
https://youtu.be/YptQ0z138Uo
VaultGirl69
Awww. It's already taken down.
BenSnow97
Is it geoblocked? I can see it from Europe
VaultGirl69
I don't remember, lol. Black background. White text.
Shelest
no, the guy who maintained that video got fired
darthstormer
Left-pad. That is all.
PENlSMAN
Til
mithiwithi
When I saw the original XKCD, I was surprised that the title text didn't reference left-pad.
Foisted
What is left-pad?
darthstormer
Tiny util library to left-pad strings. Was imported to tons of projects, that underlie a ton more. Author pulled the project when it was
darthstormer
No longer necessary, by a standard javascript method. And promptly broke millions of projects.
ReginaKasteen
Left-shark?
MangoVsPotato
but why was it necessary to use a dependency that can be coded in a jiffy?
darthstormer
Good question. I err on the side of not importing until absolutely necessary, and doubly so if it's code for others to use.
trendy0
If you know you know, try to get your company to give $1000 out a month between 10 projects.
Tyl3rrDurrd3n
Man I so wish I understood coding.
BenSnow97
barf1189
I heard if you know basic math and have functional fingers, you have a great basis to start
Tyl3rrDurrd3n
?? it's a go
barf1189
don't forget about me if you become the next Bill Gates :)
Tyl3rrDurrd3n
My parents don't have the connections like bill's parents did. But there's always the lottery. ??
Groose
That and are willing to spend a month looking for the missing semi-colon
BenSnow97
not in python
infiniteblaze
It's not like that anymore. Any time code is executed or compiled, the line and character where the error occurred is referenced. Very easy.
leftiness
Main.java:12: error: ';' expected
SomeDetroitGuy
Interesting to me that the response to the left-pad incident was NPM just straight up pirating the dude's code.
josiah988
Good. Fuck software patents. Motherfuckers try to own the idea of "files on a server" gtfo
mikeatike
This is more copyright than patent. Drama ensued because and NPMs shitty system allowed him to retroactively remove something.
mithiwithi
They didn't pirate the code, they hijacked the library name he published it under. Which is ironic because the whole kerfuffle 1/2
mithiwithi
was started because one of his other libraries was named after a trademarked app and the trademark owner wanted it. 2/2
pomax
This is where licenses come into play: even if you change the license, all your code before then is *still* under the old license.
pomax
There is no "piracy" of code that comes with a license that says "you are allowed to copy this code as long as you say where you got it"
MasterOdin
The library exists under the MIT license and so freely allows for forks so long as you don't claim authorship, which NPM never did
ReginaKasteen
Now I wonder if MIT put that provision in because somebody said "okay but what if Steve rage-quits?" and they wanted a good answer.
leftiness
It's a very small license. I'm thinking probably they weren't thinking about this exact scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License
qzgy
Hello my friend doesn't know what you're talking about. Could you explain please?
Elementalist01
Dude made a package called kik. Kik the app didnt like that. Code publisher sided with app. Dude pulled all his code, including left-pad 1/2
Elementalist01
left-pad used throughout web in java. Broke lots of pages. Code publisher (NPM) re-published dudes deleted code without permission. 2/2
Corrodias
Permission wasn't needed, mind. That's the point of it being open source.
nickwinters
https://qz.com/646467/how-one-programmer-broke-the-internet-by-deleting-a-tiny-piece-of-code/
Thunderthunder
Thanks! Good read.
nickwinters
You're welcome
YesYouJustLostTheGameAgain
I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it! Absolute legend that dude is. 11 lines of code! That’s all it took
darkklad2000
. and that is some straight up bullshit
pomax
Someone wrote a utility that allowed people to pad out a string, because the language it was for didn't support that. 1/2
Myrectumhousesasmallindonesianfamily
It's not that it didn't support it, it just didn't provide a convenience function to do it for you. Any competant programmer can do easily.
pomax
Sure, and then they'd have discovered they had to do it x100 in their code base, and moved it into its own requirable file, and presto.
pomax
Then, after a long enough time that dependencies of dependencies of dependencies all depended on it, they "unreleased" their code. 2/2
BenSnow97
*didn't already have a convenient enough default implementation, it's basically a one-liner, like this:
BenSnow97
const leftPad = (s, l, c = ' ') => String(c).repeat(l - s.length) + s