Re: Rewriting SSA. Is This A Chance For GNU/Linux?

On 3/30/25 11:08 PM, pothead wrote:

On 2025-03-30, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sun, 30 Mar 2025 03:42:18 -0400, c186282 wrote:
>

    As for the SSA (and IRS) ... reports are that they're STILL using
    1960s computers for certain operations and thus really can't
    integrate anything.

>
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/what-could-possibly-go-wrong-
doge-to-rapidly-rebuild-social-security-codebase/
>
I've never dealt with SSA other than as a consumer. However I have had to
deal with the DOI's IMARS (Incident Management Analysis and Reporting
System) that was deployed around 2012. Great fun!
>
Then there is the FBI's NIBRS (National Incident Based Reporting System)
that is meant to replace the UCR (Uniform Crime Reports) system that went
back to the 1920s.  The format for submitting data is a moving target and
crime in the US is under-reported since many agencies can't manage to
submit their data successfully.
>
Based on those two, I give the chance of updating the SSA system in less
than 10 years a very low probability. The US government's attention span
is more like 10 days than 10 years so good luck. Unlike the other two CFs
I have a personal interest in continuing to receive my checks every month.
>

Financial institutions are still running COBOL as well as other legacy
systems like TPF.
They also run Linux on mainframes in logical partitions.
More recently is the adoption of the MongoDB platform which also runs on
'old iron' mainframes.
The once dead mainframe has made a huge comeback due to virtualization and
reliability due to being N+1 at a minimum.
However the big market is in storage devices and programming to support AI.
 the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.

   The old COBOL code - writ by narrow-tie 60s geniuses - is
   gonna be HARD to replicate even WITH 'AI' help.
   What works, WORKS ... and bureaucracies will GO with that
   theme for as long as possible and a bit more.
   As I said elsewhere ... Python or RUST ... 'C' is just
   great BUT can too easily hide all kinds of faults and
   vulnerabilities. Check THIS week's list of M$ buffer-
   overflow vulnerabilities ..........
   'Ada' - no, No, NO ... it's a b-crats lang, takes FOREVER
   to produce anything. Just TORTURE.
   Sorry lady Lovelace .............