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America's Cities Are Running on Software From the '80s (bloomberg.com)
Even San Francisco's tech chops can't save it from relying on computers that belong in a museum. From a report: The only place in San Francisco still pricing real estate like it's the 1980s is the city assessor's office. Its property tax system dates back to the dawn of the floppy disk. City employees appraising the market work with software that runs on a dead programming language and can't be used with a mouse. Assessors are prone to make mistakes when using the vintage software because it can't display all the basic information for a given property on one screen. The staffers have to open and exit several menus to input stuff as simple as addresses. To put it mildly, the setup "doesn't reflect business needs now," says the city's assessor, Carmen Chu.
San Francisco rarely conjures images of creaky, decades-old technology, but that's what's running a key swath of its government, as well as those of cities across the U.S. Politicians can often score relatively easy wins with constituents by borrowing money to pay for new roads and bridges, but the digital equivalents of such infrastructure projects generally don't draw the same enthusiasm. "Modernizing technology is not a top issue that typically comes to mind when you talk to taxpayers and constituents on the street," Chu says. It took her office almost four years to secure $36 million for updated assessors' hardware and software that can, among other things, give priority to cases in which delays may prove costly. The design requirements are due to be finalized this summer.
San Francisco rarely conjures images of creaky, decades-old technology, but that's what's running a key swath of its government, as well as those of cities across the U.S. Politicians can often score relatively easy wins with constituents by borrowing money to pay for new roads and bridges, but the digital equivalents of such infrastructure projects generally don't draw the same enthusiasm. "Modernizing technology is not a top issue that typically comes to mind when you talk to taxpayers and constituents on the street," Chu says. It took her office almost four years to secure $36 million for updated assessors' hardware and software that can, among other things, give priority to cases in which delays may prove costly. The design requirements are due to be finalized this summer.
It's Java, right? Tell me it's Java!
You can read the headline as a denigration of governments (which is always valid, because they get paid regardless of their performance), but you can also read it as proving that the programmers of the 1980s produces some pretty solid work.
...and is optimized to run on extremely slow hardware. It was often written by people that were extremely talented at optimizing their code because hardware limitations forced them to do this.
I won't deny that advances in computer language have made it possible to write programs better than they used to be written when machines were extremely procedural and single threaded, but at the same time, the amount of bloat in modern programming afforded by modern hardware has more than made up for it.
I've seen the progression of software for simple things like workorder systems and asset management and audit get worse over time. The only 'improvement' is access, in that going from an 80x25 text console on a remote system with terminal emulation, to a a full-fledged program running on a specific architecture in a text mode, to a GUI program on a specific architecture, to 'applet' type programs using runtime libraries cross-platform, to web-based access that theoretically are entirely platform independent presuming a minimum browser version, and in just about all cases the further they've gone, the slower clunkier for actual experienced users that frequently use the system. It might not be any better for inexperienced users either if the vendor hasn't taken the time to look at workflow from an outside point of view.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I think this is awesome. It was good software that hasn't needed to be "updated" every other day like modern software is.
I don't respond to AC's.
'can't be used with a mouse'
Which describes an entire era of software. Was ti useful before a mouse was considered so vital, actually before it was even used, or existed? Well, back then it was specified, purchased, and used. Same as now, this is a specious argument.
'Assessors are prone to make mistakes when using the vintage software because it can't display all the basic information for a given property on one screen'
Dear, it seems as if either this software was NEVER usable, or are users able to take the necessary care to do their work accurately...?
'The staffers have to open and exit several menus to input stuff as simple as addresses'
Ah, the slings and arrows.
'To put it mildly, the setup "doesn't reflect business needs now'
As in ease of use, etc, sure. As in it has always worked like this, why do I seem to read this as 'it's old and clunky, and it's the fault of the software that I make so many mistakes'. Where I work, we do have a lot of this. Because we care, and work in private industry, we understand the software, make the necessary adjustments to our habits, and take the time to do it right.
'It took her office almost four years to secure $36 million for updated assessors' hardware and software...'
'The design requirements are due to be finalized this summer.'
What comes first, the chicken, the egg, the funding, or the requirements?
After all that, has no one in San Francisco government made a CBA case for replacing it? I'm betting they are leaving revenue on the table by not having accurate data. And I'm betting they need to build reasonable, achievable requirements. So many government IT projects fail because the project was designed so poorly from the start.. Examples abound.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
A mouse would not increase efficiencies, look at the horrid inefficiencies of web applications. The lost productivity when IBM forced one of their large financial clients to move from a 3270 green screen app for change management to web app caused outrage. Most UI/UX people do not use the tools they design. Is there "technical debt" here, likely. Does the new app need to support a mouse or be web based? Likely not.
The only reason for San Francisco to upgrade is if they want to be like Atlanta and get to try out some ransomware code on their production systems
Since it was designed that way, it always made the users pay attention and be inefficient.
So it was a result of the limitations of the industry at the time.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"We’re dealing with an irrational public who wants greater and greater service delivery at the same time they want their taxes to be lower." That's not irrational. That's optimistic. Improved service should decrease costs. If the cost of improved traffic management is less than the savings of improved road maintenance than the solution works. City planners work on long term solutions with tech that likely won't change for decades. Saying something was made in the 80s makes it sound old, but doesn't mean it is obsolete.
Finance, Cities, Airlines, Pharma, the whole defense industry. What kind of news article is this for a software developer biased news aggregation portal when even this most basic fact is stated as some kind of surprise.
... Minnesota spent about a decade and $100 million to replace its ancient vehicle-licensing and registration software, but the new version arrived with so many glitches in 2017 that Governor Tim Walz has asked for an additional $16 million to fix it. ...
Must have bought the same software that my state purchased. For over a decade they collected a "modernization" fee while using the old system of IBM 3270 terminals, and when they hired the company to develop the new system it was a colossal failure. Wait times went up significantly. Years later and the system still hasn't improved. Oh, and they still keep collecting that modernization fee. The only improvement is that you can now reserve a spot in line via a text message and they will then send you a text message when you're near the front of the queue, so you can go to work or whatever and don't have to sit in the waiting room for hours.
I pay the "convenience" fee to handle as much as I can on-line and via mail, but some times that can't be done such as when purchasing a vehicle.
I bought a utility trailer a while back. They had to fill out my name and address on no less than four different pieces of paper. Seriously? Even if they need to use paper for some strange reason, they can't just type it in once and print out the four different forms they need?
Leave it that way. Likely not directly connected to the Internet so it's secure. Or, if it is, not running anything that anyone remembers how to hack or are targeting these days.
The design requirements are due to be finalized this summer.
I can almost guarantee the project will be years over schedule and billions over budget because, no, the design requirements were not actually "finalized" and city managers with enough clout constantly interrupt development with additional feature requests.
Buwahahaha. Speaking as a guy who maintains old Unix and OpenVMS boxes for a living I can tell you that most people would have zero idea what to do if they did "get in" to a mainframe or even a mini. Those skills are very rare and that's why people pay good money for folks who have skills beyond the basics that lots of schmucks learn from using Bash on their Ubuntu machine. I watch newbies with MVS, MPE, and VMS and they can't even change directories, much less do any damage. The mother fuckers couldn't even set their terminals up for proper emulation. I've gone as far as to give people access to honeypot environments for various mainframe and minicomputer operating systems from the 1980's (long story on how I set that up) but it was hilarious watching children from China, Romania, Israel, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, and even a few Americans flop around like fish once they dropped to an environment that doesn't have command line completion and on screen help to walk their ignorant asses through everything. These little tykes are too dumb to do much damage, even though all they'd have to do is READ for about 10 minutes to get familiar with things (so in other words - forget it). Hell there are even Youtube videos on how to get around on a various mainframes. Nonetheless, only the true Scotsmen seem to have the attention span to pull it off and they are too busy making money and living well to worry about breaking into old city mainframes.
if you wait to long you get trapped by technology.
The big problem here is while the data on these systems is trivial today the pushed the limits of 8-16k miniframes. Thus there were a lot of sneaky calls directly accessing memory or even processor registers. The software was integrated into the hardware with bits of assembly and what not. This makes it pretty much impossible for a young modern programer to figure out. The old ones are dead or want $500/hr to touch a COBOL system. and lets face it the guys that bid on gov contracts wont hire them anyway. So these systems become black boxes... they still work but no one knows how.
There is a local business here that until being bought out still depended on an 80's wang system running software built for a 70's wang system. There only source of parts was trading with the air force and they only used theirs to train people to what tech may be hooked up to old soviet bloc weapon systems.
I never will understand this obsessive need to try and kill systems that just work.
AS/400 based system are some of the most reliable systems money can buy. They can handle insane amounts of workloads and can scale from small systems to complete mainframes. The only real issue with them is terminals (which is a minor issue with modern terminal emulation) and the hardware and software maintenance costs, but you do get what you pay for.
I'll almost guarantee that they will switch to some "modern" system running either a Java or Web based backend that will either get hacked, crash due to excessive load, or both, and probably pay twice as much as they're currently paying now to switch vs upgrading their current setup.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Have you seen the average worker at the DMV? They're not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It probably is a bespoke solution though. I am sure the original software was modeled on an existing paper process. Said paper process probably had a lot embedded rules; which are defined by local statue.
This is one of those cases where there is probably quite a bit of nity-girty that most people don't realize. Its one of those cases where yes there is probably some off the shelf animal that might meet there needs but it probably also requires a army of consultants to customize and develop rules for. Not cheap.
The alternative is to realize that the data volume is only so big. There are only so many residents, only so many land parcels, etc... Is a big volume sure but probably not something that a good DBA and handful of develops can't implement from scratch + copy of MSSQL server or Postgres almost as easily as deploying some giant all encompassing solution from SAP or Oracle.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It's COBOL. Running on an AS/400. Big effin' deal. I'm guessing that the county assessor's opinion of computer technology is "If I haven't used it, it's got to go." [1] COBOL is not exactly dead, but it isn't the programming language du jour. (I've seen recent job ads looking for people with COBOL experience. I could forward some of them to her.) I suspect she'd much happier if the whole system consisted of a single, shared Excel spreadsheet. At least she'd have her mouse to move around.
I predict we'll be seeing a future post about the huge cost overruns, inoperable software, and the crisis in the assessor's office when the conversion to a trendy "non-dead" language on new, overpriced hardware flounders and the lawsuits begin.
[1] - She seems like she might be a kindred spirit with the guy I once worked with whose title of "Director of Computing Technology" would never have prepared you for his daily criticism of each and every computer technology he came in contact with. It was really quite amazing. Nobody--and I mean nobody--in the department could figure out what technology would be graced with his approval.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
So what you are saying indirectly is that you are the brain-damaged one since you speak of things you have zero knowledge of. VMS was one of the best designed OS's ever. It was light years ahead of all the Unix's flavors at the time.
While San Francisco is a big city, that just feels like a big number to me.
Not really to me. My department uses three systems and just to upgrade one of them with the same vendor from one version to the next was around 12-15 million. That's for new servers, deployment team, trainers, vendor support, etc. Any changes needed to the actual server room because of need for better HVAC, user computers, or something like that would be extra. Now, that's for a pretty large system of servers handling the main cluster, reporting, back ups, web serving, file server and archives, etc. Start talking about going from an ancient system to a new one, the project is probably going to be a year plus and have to start with figuring out decades old workflow that isn't documented, data models and conversion, and other stuff before the servers even come up.
You have to double the cost from 36 million to 72 million and expect a long delay in implementation and it won't work the way they said it would or at all and they will have to scrap it in the end and go back to paper and pencils because they tossed out the old system. Real world.
E Proelio Veritas.
Here's a perhaps apocryphal story I heard from an old friend. At the time he was with a consultancy that did work for the City.
About 15 years ago the City of SF felt that their old mainframe-based financial software was showing its age. This was 100% bespoke software, iirc written in COBOL. Lots of lawful-corruption programmed into it, of course. So the City asked Oracle for an estimate on what it would cost to "upgrade" to Oracle Financials.
So Oracle sends in a pair of consultants to examine the old software. After a month they make their report: If the City wants to migrate to Oracle Financials, they are going to need to pay Oracle $10 million. FOR A PROJECT PLAN AND COST ESTIMATE. The actual migration was expected to cost much more.
Needless to say, the City kept their old software.
How accurate is this story? No idea - it came to me third hand. How plausible is it? Very plausible.