

Tell HN about: Institutional memory and reverse smuggling - oldengineer
http://wrttn.in/04af1a

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oldengineer
Throwaway account for obvious reasons. I've been meaning to write something
about this. Some recent discussions on HN about institutional memory convinced
me to throw it online.

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jholman
As others said, thank you for sharing. This seems especially valuable for the
rare perspective: the story itself is presumably commonplace, but you have to
have decades of experience to be able to experience it.

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jwhitlark
One of the vernor vinge books had software archeology as a discipline, for
similar reasons.

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joshu
Programmer/archaeologist.

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teyc
This article reminds me of the one where MacDonald's returning CEO finds out
that they have lost the recipe of the special sauce. It was kept so secret
that they finally lost it, and but for the CEO knowing the guy who formulated
it, brought him out of retirement to make one more batch, we'd never have it
on our Macs today.

Software projects are like this too. After a few years, a lot of memory is
lost if people leave.

I enjoyed the reference to "alien technology". Indeed it is.

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retroafroman
Great read. I've seen it happen-my boss was asked to go back and help consult
to a bank he used to work for (this was in 2008, the bank was failing and
being bought) about some database archive features he implemented, IIRC. Also,
in my current job, I'm currently at a customer site helping them figure out
how the machine we sold them a year ago works. Engineering documentation is
just as important as software documentation.

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billswift
The section on reverse corporate espionage reminded me of the old Robert
Heinlein/Lazarus Long quote: "Never underestimate the power of human
stupidity." And that humans get even stupider in groups, whether governments
or corporations.

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recursive
The page is not able to scroll on the android browser.

