IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

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TJT

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Noodleface said:
To me that sounds like an absolutely useless manager
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99% of the time you are right.

1% of the time you need to unfuck 40 years of bullshit impacting a multibillion dollar enterprise then you need this person.

I keep trying to poorly communicate how batshit database development was in the past. Let me try to frame it a little better.

  1. Source systems deposit data in a file format to tons of SFTP that's been around since the 80s.
  2. This SFTP is consumed by an in house application that extracts data from these very specific files with what you would today consider VERY BIZARRE formatting. A lot of them are not CSV, but |||| SV and so on. Layer 0
  3. You have now entered the first layer of databases existing in a datacenter this company owns. All of this runs on SQL Server. Layer 1.
  4. You have another in house application that is not really an application. But a simple task runner that runs hundreds and hundreds of stored procedures in sequence. This generates several thousand tables, databases, and other objects periodically. Layer 2.
  5. Nested in the above hundreds of stored procedures are other stored procedures that produce more database shit. Layer 3.
  6. The above nested stored procedures update and generate tons of more stuff that is then used by the next layer of views, tables, databases, SSIS jobs, etc etc.
  7. ... Another layer of Stored procedures and triggers and shit.
  8. ...
  9. ...
  10. ...
  11. ...
It continues on like this down to layer 40-50 where I actually touch it with my tasks.

No comments, no source control, no logging, no documentation, no real way to diagnose problems unless you're a wizard with old SQL tuning and generally know where to start looking.
 
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Khane

Khane

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The problems you are outlining aren't actually an issue with old, archaic systems or personnel who know how to keep those specific systems running being irreplaceable dinosaurs.

The problem is that everyone who knew what the system did (i.e. its actual business function) must be long gone because that's really all you need to have to modernize it. People who know what the system needs to do, what its business function is. How it does it is entirely inconsequential.

Like #2 in your list is the kind of stuff I have dealt with my entire career and this is just how healthcare works (I also work in healthcare). Pipe delimited files aren't particularly bizarre and HL7 v2 file formats are all a combination of positional and multi-layered delimiters. They look complicated but there are hundreds, or maybe even thousands of parsers for them. HL7 v3, which is all XML, is arguably worse because of tag bloat and its why most healthcare entities stayed on v2. Adoption of things like FHIR is slow and might even be considered outdated at this point (been a while since I dealt with HL7 data).

This woman is probably just playing it very close to the vest and not divulging information that would help modernize her own worth out of existence.
 
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TomServo

TomServo

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TJT said:
99% of the time you are right.

1% of the time you need to unfuck 40 years of bullshit impacting a multibillion dollar enterprise then you need this person.

I keep trying to poorly communicate how batshit database development was in the past. Let me try to frame it a little better.

  1. Source systems deposit data in a file format to tons of SFTP that's been around since the 80s.
  2. This SFTP is consumed by an in house application that extracts data from these very specific files with what you would today consider VERY BIZARRE formatting. A lot of them are not CSV, but |||| SV and so on. Layer 0
  3. You have now entered the first layer of databases existing in a datacenter this company owns. All of this runs on SQL Server. Layer 1.
  4. You have another in house application that is not really an application. But a simple task runner that runs hundreds and hundreds of stored procedures in sequence. This generates several thousand tables, databases, and other objects periodically. Layer 2.
  5. Nested in the above hundreds of stored procedures are other stored procedures that produce more database shit. Layer 3.
  6. The above nested stored procedures update and generate tons of more stuff that is then used by the next layer of views, tables, databases, SSIS jobs, etc etc.
  7. ... Another layer of Stored procedures and triggers and shit.
  8. ...
  9. ...
  10. ...
  11. ...
It continues on like this down to layer 40-50 where I actually touch it with my tasks.

No comments, no source control, no logging, no documentation, no real way to diagnose problems unless you're a wizard with old SQL tuning and generally know where to start looking.
Click to expand...
But AI will fix all of that!
 
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TJT

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Khane said:
The problems you are outlining aren't actually an issue with old, archaic systems or personnel who know how to keep those specific systems running being irreplaceable dinosaurs.

The problem is that everyone who knew what the system did (i.e. its actual business function) must be long gone because that's really all you need to have to modernize it. People who know what the system needs to do, what its business function is. How it does it is entirely inconsequential.

Like #2 in your list is the kind of stuff I have dealt with my entire career and this is just how healthcare works (I also work in healthcare). Pipe delimited files aren't particularly bizarre and HL7 v2 file formats are all a combination of positional and multi-layered delimiters. They look complicated but there are hundreds, or maybe even thousands of parsers for them. HL7 v3, which is all XML, is arguably worse because of tag bloat and its why most healthcare entities stayed on v2. Adoption of things like FHIR is slow and might even be considered outdated at this point (been a while since I dealt with HL7 data).

This woman is probably just playing it very close to the vest and not divulging information that would help modernize her own worth out of existence.
Click to expand...
Certainly true to a degree. I had to work one of the tasks and my primary problems were unhelpful errors and having no idea where to look.

Pipe delimited isn't the issue but why did anyone ever use four pipes to delimit anything? Like why did that ever become a thing? These are just the lower level issues I have personally interacted with.
 
Control

Control

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I don't have to deal with that many layers of craziness, but much of the fun is that no one really has a good overview of what systems exist or who has knowledge of or access to all of them. All of the tech is siloed, so even if something could be trivial to run down, you might have multiple layers of teams throughout the org to run requests through (each potentially taking weeks), and god help you if you don't know very specifically what you're looking for. It's gotten a lot better (well, at least from my perspective), but that's only served to make me briefly forget how fun it is until I have to do it again.

On our AI front, someone has fallen in love with using AI to generate text to accompany (or replace) reports.
"You know, we could probably just do that with a bit of pre-written text and some conditionals instead of the multiple teams you're having to involve to get this to work..."
"Yeah, but then we would have to write the text and conditions"
Happy Excuse Me GIF
 
Mist

Mist

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TomServo said:
But AI will fix all of that!
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We will use AI to rewrite all of the old infrastructure no living human understands into all new infrastructure no living human understands, and we will call it progress.

But as long as the SaaS bucks keep rolling in, nobody gives a shit.
 
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Noodleface

Noodleface

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5 day RTO mandate coming Feb 3rd along with potential layoffs. Think it's about time to hit the dusty trail
 
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Vinen

Vinen

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Noodleface said:
5 day RTO mandate coming Feb 3rd along with potential layoffs. Think it's about time to hit the dusty trail
Click to expand...

I've been full RTO since late 2023 when AVGO acquired VMW. RTO for AVGO basically means go into office for 2 hours then go and WFH.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Vinen said:
I've been full RTO since late 2023 when AVGO acquired VMW. RTO for AVGO basically means go into office for 2 hours then go and WFH.
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If rumors are to be believed it's going to be much stricter. They're already pissed people do this.

Is VMware going to be dead sometime soon?
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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God, I hope not. Their ridiculous prices are probably in part driving things like libvirt and qemu to remain open source and free.
 
Neranja

Neranja

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Deathwing said:
God, I hope not. Their ridiculous prices are probably in part driving things like libvirt and qemu to remain open source and free.
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After switching to cores instead of sockets for their pricing model, invoice from VMware was basically 7 times the previous cost.
It's probably all containers as much as possible + Proxmox going forward now, as VMware pricing alone is more expensive what Amazon EC would cost.

I sure hope the managers getting the bonus for this idea are cashing out quickly before it all comes crashing down.
 
Siliconemelons

Siliconemelons

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Neranja said:
After switching to cores instead of sockets for their pricing model, invoice from VMware was basically 7 times the previous cost.
It's probably all containers as much as possible + Proxmox going forward now, as VMware pricing alone is more expensive what Amazon EC would cost.

I sure hope the managers getting the bonus for this idea are cashing out quickly before it all comes crashing down.
Click to expand...


lol “you know oracle had a good idea about a pricing model”

Gosh I remember upgrading all our oracle hosts and we got some Dells that used - at the time - different CPUs that the rest- low core higher clock speed they made basically to keep “by core” model licensing under control.

Then when I was doing desktop virtualization and GPU augmented ones with nnid’ya and their pay out a crap ton for our cards and then pay more per user that is /enabled/ to use a VMware w gpu… we did ATI for that reason and boy was that a… fun time.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Neranja said:
After switching to cores instead of sockets for their pricing model, invoice from VMware was basically 7 times the previous cost.
It's probably all containers as much as possible + Proxmox going forward now, as VMware pricing alone is more expensive what Amazon EC would cost.

I sure hope the managers getting the bonus for this idea are cashing out quickly before it all comes crashing down.
Click to expand...
Yep, containers make up the bulk of our testing and development environment. A handful of VMs cover the rest. I've been really liking this setup as it lets us cut out the IT department for small shit they seem unmotivated to do.

How has proxmox been? Didn't know it existed but it was our architect that choose libvirt/qemu, so I don't know if he considered it.
 
Neranja

Neranja

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Deathwing said:
How has proxmox been? Didn't know it existed but it was our architect that choose libvirt/qemu, so I don't know if he considered it.
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Proxmox is basically KVM/QEMU/libvirt with a nice Web UI (plus CLI and REST API) for admins used to VMware. Not as nice as VMware, of course. Nifty things like PCI passthrough for network or GPU cards work, provided the hardware supports it. For HA you need three machines plus redundant storage, with the recommendation being Ceph.

If you have a single virtualization server for a testing/lab environmen, and you don't really need uptime + support, you could get away with the open source version.
 
Brahma

Brahma

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I need advice.

I got laid off a few months back. Found a gig quickly for a GREAT company. Best place I have worked in 25 years. Best of all EVERYONE I work with is awesome and has so much in common with me it's kinda scary.

I applied for a Sr. IT Engineer role for the state and got the job after FOUR fuckin panels of interviews. I made some demands, and they gave me everything I asked for to SOME degree. More than fair on their end. 25k more a year (I make 120K now). I can work at any state office. There is one office 4 minutes from my home. Also I can work from home as needed.

Bad side. I need to go into Boston for about 90 days until the director feels I am up to par. I will need to travel here and there (Once or twice a month) around the state on things the techs can't resolve.

I REALLY like it here, but the states pension alone makes this worth swapping.

Thoughts?
 
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Khane

Khane

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How many years til vestment in the pension? State provided healthcare plans are usually worth the consideration alone and you're a geezer already! If those keep skating through and go untouched that is, which as someone just getting into a state job right now I'd be concerned about.

People, even pro-union/pensioner people, are starting to get angry about exactly how much money is being paid out to retirees who are living well into their 90s.
 
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Brahma

Brahma

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Khane said:
How many years til vestment in the pension? State provided healthcare plans are usually worth the consideration alone and you're a geezer already! If those keep skating through and go untouched that is, which as someone just getting into a state job right now I'd be concerned about.

People, even pro-union/pensioner people, are starting to get angry about exactly how much money is being paid out to retirees who are living well into their 90s.
Click to expand...

10 years fully vested. 80% of your highest salary the last 60 months.
 
Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
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Brahma said:
I need advice.

I got laid off a few months back. Found a gig quickly for a GREAT company. Best place I have worked in 25 years. Best of all EVERYONE I work with is awesome and has so much in common with me it's kinda scary.

I applied for a Sr. IT Engineer role for the state and got the job after FOUR fuckin panels of interviews. I made some demands, and they gave me everything I asked for to SOME degree. More than fair on their end. 25k more a year (I make 120K now). I can work at any state office. There is one office 4 minutes from my home. Also I can work from home as needed.

Bad side. I need to go into Boston for about 90 days until the director feels I am up to par. I will need to travel here and there (Once or twice a month) around the state on things the techs can't resolve.

I REALLY like it here, but the states pension alone makes this worth swapping.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Most state pensions have a buy out clause if you end up leaving early. So aside from commuting what's your concern? It seems like it's a better job or you wouldn't have applied?
 
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Brahma

Brahma

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Palum said:
Most state pensions have a buy out clause if you end up leaving early. So aside from commuting what's your concern? It seems like it's a better job or you wouldn't have applied?
Click to expand...

The people.

Money isn't really that big of deal to me (as long as the loved ones are comfortable), and the benefits are about even.

I have never in my 40 years of working been at a place where damn near everyone I work with, I would gladly have a beer with, or shoot the shit playing cards or playing games. Matter fact it's always been the opposite, where as I HATE my co-workers. Hell even the short blue hairs I was wary of aren't that bad.

I also loathe to give a two weeks notice to a great director after being here less than two months.
 
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