Re:Why companies struggle with recalcitrant IT
by tsimionescu on Friday July 17, 2020 @06:49AM
(#23869205)
There are at least 2 different definitions of robustness that could be relevant here.
The legacy systems are likely to cover many more business corner cases, which is a kind of robustness.
However, legacy systems, developed before modern software engineering practices caught on in internal IT departments (no tests, no modularization, no QA, etc), are often very prone to crashes, freezes and all sorts of other bizarre behaviors, which is a different kind of robustness.
Of course, I'm absolutely sure that newly written software is often lacking in both kinds of robustness, perhaps with the same frequency as legacy software. But often times, when a company is replacing a legacy system with a new one, this second kind of robustness is taken care of with priority.
The legacy systems are likely to cover many more business corner cases, which is a kind of robustness.
However, legacy systems, developed before modern software engineering practices caught on in internal IT departments (no tests, no modularization, no QA, etc), are often very prone to crashes, freezes and all sorts of other bizarre behaviors, which is a different kind of robustness.
Of course, I'm absolutely sure that newly written software is often lacking in both kinds of robustness, perhaps with the same frequency as legacy software. But often times, when a company is replacing a legacy system with a new one, this second kind of robustness is taken care of with priority.