—
Every so often, I get reminded that I’m old, and I’ve been programming for almost 60 years, which is a long time. But 60 years in the business means I’ve seen a lot of things that young naïve programmers have never seen.
ThiscomesupoftenwhenpeopletalkaboutDOGEandtheWizardsAcademyMuskhasputtogethertohelpinvestigatefraud,abuse,and,probablymostofall,bureaucraticstupidity.
OneofthethingsIseepeople—technicalpeople,butyoung—sayingaboutthingslikeSocialSecurityandtheIRSisthingslike“justdumpthewholedatabaseintoHadoop.”
Theproblemwiththatstartswiththefactthatit’snotinadatabase.It’sawildlyheterogeneouscollectionofdifferentdatabases,ISAMfiles,andcardimages,andIwouldbetmoneythatalotofitisonold7-tracktapes.SomeoftheseareprobablystoredinIronMountainorasimilarinstallation.Also,someofthedatamaystillbejustonpaper,asapparentlygovernmentretirementrecordsare.
SowhatBigBallsandtheotherwizardsaregoingtoneedtodotostartwithisfindthedata.
I’mwillingtobetthere’snosinglecatalogofalltheda
