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Message-ID: <200408140052.i7E0qY33030630@turing-police.cc.vt.edu>
From: Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu (Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu)
Subject: (no subject)
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 21:17:44 +0200, Maarten said:
> The only thing Todd (and I) are trying to say is that it is possible to rename
> after the fact. I don't #!%$&* care how many old Cobol programs need
> adapting for that to "get" possible, but the fact remains that it IS.
The question is *in fact* what ROI the companies get for modifying all that
old Cobol. "Possible" and "worth doing" are two different things...
> Don't start again about how your current procedures may prevent or complicate
> that. Worse integration problems, by far more complex and bigger companies
> or conglomerates are being tackled every day. Yeah. To name a few ?
Note that here the ROI is pretty easy - you fix the compatibility or the company
goes under.
> How about mergers, or international intelligence-exchange between law
> enforcement agencies. Do you think that they let anyone stop them by
> complaining that database format X isn't readily compatible with format Y ?
> No. They fix it, they make it work together no matter what.
Actually, that isn't always the case.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=332&sid=100
Yes, a database so borked that copying it could break it.
> So don't start about how impossible it is for you to rename one simple entry.
It's not a question of being *impossible*. But if it costs them US$750K to do it,
and the expected return is under US$750K, why should they do it?
Hell, we're talking about an industry which as a whole *continues* to keep
spewing out 'We removed a virus/worm' warnings to known not-at-fault addresses
- presumably the (probably very low) cost of ceasing to do so is
counterbalanced by the advertising benefit of the spam. If they won't do *THAT*
little thing that's *obviously* in the public interest, why should they change
the way they name stuff, at probably higher cost, and less obvious benefit?
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