Comments on: DMV ‘meltdown’ latest in long list of CA computer woes https://calwatchdog.com/2016/10/31/dmv-meltdown-latest-long-list-ca-computer-woes/ Wed, 02 Nov 2016 15:20:08 +0000 hourly 1 By: Bob Morris https://calwatchdog.com/2016/10/31/dmv-meltdown-latest-long-list-ca-computer-woes/#comment-123041 Wed, 02 Nov 2016 15:20:08 +0000 http://calwatchdog.com/?p=91687#comment-123041 I’m a software developer and specializes in converting old DOS database systems to modern Windows. While incompetence is a factor, a bigger problem is almost certainly that the systems are a rats nest of poorly documented code developed over decades with dozens if not hundreds of modules feeding data in and out and no one really understands how it works. Upgrading means pulling all that data into modern understandable data sets and, oh yes most especially for payroll, it must work perfectly when it goes live. Employees get really cranky if their check is short.

I convert systems written in the 1990s and there practically never is documentation and sometimes they don’t even have the source code. Now imagine that for systems originally written in the 1960s-1970s…

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