We have an embedded system in one of product offerings that was largely developed using a bunch of “antiquated” technologies (over the past twenty years) and over the past year the two software devs that maintained it have retired. This normally would have big problem, but the entire codebase was re-written, documented, and modernized in a matter of about 3 months (for about $20k in tokens, and a mid level developer spending 50% of their time on it over that period). So it doesn’t surprise me to think a company like Cisco has piles of situations like this.
Curious, why did it take 3 months and not a few days? Honest question, just curious about what is consuming all the time in a project like this?
Due diligence?
What’s that? Is there an MCP server for it?
Just add “test everything”, “this is mission critical” and “make no mistakes” to the prompt.
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Need to keep the bubble alive one more day
That's really interesting.
What have been achieved using this port?
And how did you make sure the port is correct?
Every time something like this has been done on my company I follow up with the question: did anyone watched the code to see if the business logic is the same between the two versions? The answer is: but but but automated testing.
Followup question: did anyone read the automated test suite?
Silence.
The software rewrite is shelved.
Why do people doing a rewrite need to have read the tests?
If you have good test coverage, and the tests are reliable, then what's the problem?
If your engineering culture is bad already and you don't have good test coverage or they're flaky or whatever then that is different. If that is the case, it is probably from smart-ass attitudes like yours asking these "clever" rhetorical questions to derail people trying to improve things that led it to be like that. Do everyone a favour and keep your mouth shut and let people fix things.
Honest question: does that even remotely matter, or is it an outdated prior? All software has bugs.
The goal and objective is to deliver value for your user/customers; to the speed, reliability, and assurance requirements your market segment expects.
All software has bugs, but right now you have a legacy product in production that works, then you have a rewrite that nobody tested. Do you accepted the risk to yolo it?
Sometimes the risk is acceptable, sometimes it's not.
Yup. And its always garbage as result
Not if you have a good harness. Docs and tests first