Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

They are only hard if they don't get the same priority and attention you'd see in regulated situations. Replace software or information security with "bars of gold" and suddenly it's not so hard.

That's because marketing why you should know the what/where/how/why of your gold to business decision makers is apparently much more palatable than abstract concepts found in IT, even if the value is the same.

If you get the resources (including time, money and manpower) do just do it, it can be done. But you usually don't get all three (and maybe not even one), and therefore you're stuck with a task that cannot be executed well.




Did general aviation become cheaper or more available to folks when it got more heavily regulated?

Fatality rates dropped, but it basically froze the technology and capability into the late 70’s/early 80’s and locked in just a few companies. The overall number of people working in that industry is tiny now. It’s almost a complete dead end.

It’s the classic trade off - cheaper, better, faster. Pick any 2 if you’re lucky. Most only get to pick 1.


Yep, and that is generally also why IT is the way it currently is. Most projects aren't all that complex (in business logic terms), it's mostly CRUD interfaces and a fancy viewer for the end users anyway. But industries that are still on mainframes are almost completely the opposite where every single element is tagged, catalogued, tested, described and traceable at any point in time. With a price, rigidity and lead time to match, of course.

On one hand we don't all want to buy mainframes, on the other hand, doing it as cheap and unmeasured as possible makes everything flakey, demanding on individuals to keep it running, insecure, and opaque to everyone involved. Too bad there isn't really any middle ground, it's almost like it's either "pretend to be a mainframe" or "do it as cheap as possible".

Regarding the aviation analogy: it definitely doesn't become cheaper due to regulation (it did become cheaper due to subsidies), but I'd rather have a system that's regulated (or forced) into safety than having it be optional and left to a sociopath (i.e. a for-profit publicly traded company - all the benefits of pretending to be a person but none of the responsibilities or limits to govern it - except the law and regulation).




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: