Comment Re:Common developer problem (Score 1) 118
Seems like a problem I see very commonly with developers:
Just to chime in as a developer. Here's how the conversation too frequently sounds from my perspective.
Dev: "Due to ever improving changes in hardware capabilities and the demands of the field, we had to refactor several of our libraries. Though we tried to maintain backwards compatibility as much as possible, in some cases we could not."
User: "Does it do everything the old one did?"
Dev: "Yes, and more. You can now x, y, z which was not possible in previous versions."
User: "So, does the stuff I use now stop working?"
Dev: "Some of the API's changed, so will need updating. We tried to provide verbose warnings that provide an API reference and a suggestion on how to update to the new API."
User: "Oh no! The sky is falling, we'll never be able to update our code. This is a momentous task, we're stuck with legacy software for the rest of our lives! How could you do this!? How?? HOW???"
8 years later. User and his group has pushed the legacy version of their implementation to its extremes. Support for the old version was dropped and the user's last bit of ancient hardware that could still run their implementation has died. They are now forced to not only upate to the next most recent transitional version, but also to the several versions that came afterwards possibly compounding the upgrade cycle.
The group insists that the project is an impossibility, but finally assign a developer to the task. They never actually consulted a developer in the first place, the managers just *knew* their code base was so advanced and complex that it would take years to update.
The developer begans collaborating with your support team. Three weeks later their software is updated and working with the most recent version. Many are left wondering why they didn't do this in the first place.
Before discounting this. This story was fashioned after a real life example. I kid you not, the lab group paid more money to the managers and researchers (users) in meetings about how difficult it would be and how nigh impossible to find the funds to do it would be than they did in actual salary to me to fix it.