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It's not just government. I used to work for a multi-national US corporation. Every time (without exception) that I suggested improvements/changes/different approach etc., to people above or other departments, I received the standard "we'll take that under advisement" response. So, I stopped making suggestions. That corporation was later sold (and the buyer also later sold) and is now subsumed into another corporation. Most of the people I worked with were laid off not too long after me.
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There are different ways of going about it - one of them known as the Mikado method where you make changes gradually without breaking the current codebase and as you will be adding unit tests too that's a sales pitch if ever there was one(a pretty pathetic one I admit).
It may be easier to sell that idea to management than a complete system rewrite.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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As a former federal employee (not a contractor) and now in the private sector, I can assure you the same crap is well distributed to both locals.
At our DOE facility, some of us kept a nice skunk-works going - they even patented the concept and (and proof of concept, too). Others just collected their checks. It's no different where I am now - a couple of us like doing "great works" and making things before they're needed. Others wouldn't do their job until not doing it makes them look bad. For some reason I need to add 'they wouldn't give you the time of day unless you shoved a clock up their ass.".
Lambasting government employees is some kind of cultural norm - a generally accepted target and constant victims of political screwage.
Who you're with and how it works out? The luck of the draw. I had, log ago, coveted a job at Bell Labs - but here I am, instead.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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They may get excited if you offer to rewrite it with ReactJS for front-end and something like Node for backend 
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Sorry, they are right.
A rewrite to MVC5 is a complete waste of time.
The .NET Framework will be supported - and even receive some development - over the next 5-10 years, but the message is clear: It is at the end of the road. The requirement for backwards compatibility turned it into a beast where changes are too costly (basically the exact same problem making you want to rewrite your app).
All new development from Microsoft is focusing on .NET Core. While not as clean as I would hoped (ArrayList ported… really Microsoft?), there is a lot to like - so while it will be a somewhat painful migration for some of our legacy code, I can't say I would not have made the same move if it was me in control of the .NET landscape.
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Core presents some additional iis concerns for us, and today, I consider it just half-baked. Besides that, we can't use anything newer than VS2015 until VS2017 is put on the approved software list. I started this journey with core, and had to back away.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Yep. We are also a bit in a holding pattern in some areas, moving ahead in others.
My main point is that for large projects that already have a UI in place, investing in a rewrite to ASP.NET might not be a great idea. Holding on to the old crap for another year or so and then move to .NET core could easily be a wiser investment.
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As others have said, it's not just government.
This contractor at the place I'm currently working sent out an email a couple of weeks ago how he'd found a "u-tube" video (yes, that's the term which was used) which showed how to "create an MVC application without using linq".
Because actually learning any new technologies is hard, and not worth it. Sigh.
While I certainly agree that rushing down the path of "use new thing just because" is bad as well, I saw this email and my first thought was, "ok, but why would you?"
Trying to drag them kicking and screaming into the early part of this century...
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I've been doing this for 40 years. I know it's not just government contracts.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John,
Newer isn't Better, it's just different. And full of bugs at first.
Try starting and running your own company and develop you own product sometimes. That should give you a whole new attitude adjustment. As someone who has been there, I know.
Also don't forget the User interface. Every change you make to it, requires re-training on the part of your users. The PM should have explained this to you.
Newer isn't Better, it's just different.
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Alright, listen up (mostly for the people that I don't recall ever interacting with here).
I've been a developer for almost 40 years. I already know it's the same everywhere. I already know about "new is not necessarily better" and the danger of introducing bugs (although honestly that should be a non-issue because ALL dev work - maintenance or new dev - is at risk for that aspect). I already know about the hazards of changing the UI regarding idiot users. I'm not anywhere close to being new at this crap.
My rant was merely about my current lot in life. It can even be summed up with the phrase, "Same sh*t different day", and everyone here could nod in agreement.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: My rant was merely about my current lot in life. It can even be summed up with the phrase, "Same sh*t different day", and everyone here could nod in agreement.
Nodding in agreement, John!
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Reminds of this:
Initiative
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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for my opinion (its worth what you paid to get it $0.00) Sounds like you are one of two extremes, the newbie that is uber excited to be part of the group which also can includes the guy with a new toy! Again super excited to bring that (new toy, language, design paradigm) to the group or you could be the other extreme. A craftsman, one who probably started this field on their own well before setting foot on a campus but it was never a job and always the pursuit of perfection, making something the absolute best it can be with the best choice of languages and tools and/or architecture. If you are the newbie or simply have a new toy - there is hope for you. If you are the craftsman, the ultimate configurer than I am truly sorry and I know your pain. I have been a hired gun for almost 40 years myself in this industry. There has been both good jobs and bad jobs and many nights programming for work until 2 AM at home, and showing up at work by 8 AM to start my day allover - suffering for my art because I know it can be done better, faster, with tighter security and with better stability (typically starting with architecture at square one). However, if that is NOT you then simply keep your head down, your ears open, volunteer for team lead on projects you know you can handle and brass will eventually trust you with bigger projects - OH!!! Watch your back, get to know who your friends are and WHO THEY ARE NOT. Don't let the amount of back stabbing make you a casualty, people will do some serious politicking if they feel their work/job/career is in jeopardy from the new guy, especially if the new guy is as good as he claims.
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I did a few goverment jobs - they all failed.
None of my other projects ever failed.
In Goverment projects, nobody cares if it is ever finished.
And - in my experience - almost all externals are sitting there to make as much hours as possible so even they do not want the project to succeed.
So I don't do any goverment project anymore; it's just a waste of time.
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I know the feeling. I work for a small software firm and our primary product is so mired in old code (much of it Borland OWL which pretty much only one person in the company touches these days), that any attempt to improve the product is met with the same "that will be a ton of work that we can't do because we need to concentrate on new features".
I almost always end up implementing new methodologies in my off-time or in projects that are entirely within my control, and slowly begin interfacing the legacy code to use them in "baby steps" ("what about Bob?"). We have countless requests for specific improvements that have literally all been handled in a "proof of concept" I wrote a few years ago, but until I can mirror all of our internal and external legacy API calls, there is no way to drop in this new system. That proof of concept was proven to be faster, more memory efficient, more fault tolerant and more resilient to abnormally high concurrent transaction counts than our old legacy system, while also opening up the door for a clustered parallel processing solution.
4 years later, that "proof of concept" still has not been implemented in our product because of the fear of beginning a new branch that could get out of date with current fixes while in development. (Though, I have it running as an alternate service provider for several of my projects on one of my test servers.)
I feel your pain!
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An analogy just occurred to me. Re-writing software in a different framework or language might be like switching a petrol engine car to electric.
For most users (bosses included), when they sit in the new car, and don't see or feel anything different, they might wonder why all the fuss and cost.
But it's more efficient. The engine kicks in 0.2 seconds vs 2 seconds.
Running cost will be lower.
Fixing things will be simpler because fewer moving parts.
It will be easier to re-use the engine across other cars, reducing the development time of those (repeat time might be reduced but initial development expense might mean return takes a few years - long term planning for the win)
Boss: "And it will look and feel the same"?
You: "Yes, with those additional things you want!"
Boss: "But you could add those additional things to the existing version?"
You: 
You: "I will go back to my dungeon and add the feature to allow a user to define how big they want the buttons to be."
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: 'm so tired of government contract work... There is no motivation to excel, and initiative is stomped out before it gains a foothold in peiople's minds.
I worked as an expert witness for the government on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It was a nice experience and I enjoyed it!
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I'm so tired of government contract work...we don't have the time/desire to do it at work, and you'd think I was trying to hack the freakin Pentagon.
It was my understanding that government contracts were based on dollars for features. Thus if it isn't in the contract then it should not be done in the first place.
To be fair however that is how all contracts work. The developer doesn't get paid to work on what they want - they are paid to work on what the customer wants.
One is of course free to convince the customer that they should want something else. And produce another contract. However that role is seldom one that a developer will be doing.
Somewhat reasonable of course given that normal businesses end up in the situation where they find that a developer has spent the last month working on something that they are sure is better (although often being able to quantify that is non-existent) rather than what they were supposed to be and said they were working on. Not to mention that they fail to consider the actual cost to the business such as impacts like the cost to re-test the entire stack or even actual impacts to customer processes.
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Not all contracts are time/material. The last one I was on wasn't, but this one is. All that means to me is that we can hire more people if we can justify it. The problem with that is that anyone we hire MUST have the contract-specified certifications before we can hire them, and finding devs with Security+ AND CSSLP is like looking for hen's teeth.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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At the interview: Ace the "fox-hen-grain crossing problem"
First day working in IT: Find out that foxes can swim.
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Second day working in IT: Find out that the fox is actually a turtle, the grain is on back-order and that the chicken died last Tuesday.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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And on the 3rd day you will see the bridge...
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge". Stephen Hawking, 1942- 2018
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And the day after that, there'll be a light at the end of the tunnel.
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... and then discover that the light is an oncoming train.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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