Re: Some weird comments on here...
Someone else's TRUE but UTTERLY FRIGHTENING 100+ Hours Initiation IT JOB STORY!
100+ Hours Week for 4 weeks straight doing Software + Hardware bug fix team (in the 1970's).
ON SITE in an actual WORKING PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT !! Running tests on REALTIME actual INCOMING DATA --- Could NOT take production and backup systems offline for ANY reason EVER! Only the smallest part of each sub-system was allowed to be taken offline and worked on in a LIVE FIX-IT-RIGHT-THEN-AND-THERE until the code was fixed and tested!
PROBLEM? Incoming data was PROVEN to be FALSIFIED caused by natural phenomena such sun flares and and extra-atmospheric blast events!
HOW TO FIX? Take one section of system offline taking up to 10 minutes to do. Insert NEWLY coded system into same system. Test on realtime data! Get answer. Fix Bugs in 40 minutes (i.e. with an actual countdown clock running!) on large minicomputer built onto a large cart pulled by four people! Code, Compile, Run fix on "Bug Cart" with realtime data coming from LIVE system. Re-insert NEW code and boot up into LIVE production environment (took up to 10 minutes!) with no other tests other than LIVE realtime data showing up production viewing screens! Goto NEXT system and Rinse-n-Repeat Cycle for hour after hour!
Rinse and repeat for 200+ different parts of same system taking about one hour for each Take-Offline, Re-Code, Test, Re-Upload, Put-back-online, Test on Live Data and then Pray subsystem fix! Do so for next 300 hours+ of constant 24 hours a day fixes by two teams who stayed ONSITE all the time to fix and update LIVE PRODUCTION SYSTEM on-the-fly!
HOW BIG OF A PROBLEM WAS THIS AND WHY BE SO UPPITY?
Code fixes were ordered by higher ups to be LIVE ONSITE and in REALTIME with IMMEDIATE UPLOAD to PRODUCTION SYSTEMS due to nature of system and type of environment that was ALWAYS UNDER SEVERE PRESSURE that was 24/7/365 for DECADES (and is STILL ONGOING today!)
It was a LIVE Launch-on-Warning Data Centre at a time in history where NUCLEAR ICBM MIRV MISSILES were allowed to be sent off PURELY ON WARNING WITHOUT REQUIRING the permission of "The Executive!" (i.e. Launch on Warning!) Had ANY of these "Fix Teams" failed, NONE OF YOU HERE would be alive today to tell ANY tales because a TINY FEW Tens-of-People were overworked for 300+ hours 24/7 for a few weeks to ensure fixes to code that could have and ABSOLUTELY WOULD HAVE automatically without human intervention sent 4000+ Megatons of MEGA-DEATH TO THE ENTIRE EARTH because of FALSELY-INTERPRETED real-time live incoming data !!!!
YUP! I would say that is TRULY and VERILY an ".I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T." Info-Tech FIX-IT JOB !!!!!
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