Interesting way to look at it. You could look at it another way and say what whatever they were doing before worked and got them this far. However, will what they are doing work for their continued future?
What would the technical and cultural cost of moving to a different toolchain be?
The author seems to think that obviously moving to modern tools would be better.
Would it? Or would it just add to the chaos? Would build times really improve, would debugging become easier and more streamlined, would issue tracking improve?
My guess is that changing the entire culture to the point where there were real, measurable benefits would take from a few months to a year, with a lot of unproductive downtime.
The current toolchain is not optimal, but it still sort of works. And in a limited environment like set-top, it will probably continue to work.
Bottom line: don't innovate tools for the sake of it. Innovate if it's going to give you more customers and more profit. But not otherwise.
Real innovation doesn't lead with absolute certainty, it does not know whether it will lead to a reward. I really don't understand the mentality here where everyone thinks they know what they are doing before they do it. I can understand the need to have confidence and the desire to measure out a metric of predictive possibilities, but they are only predictions. For some things, you really don't know what will happen until it happens - especially when it involves chaotic systems such as people and their wants/needs/desires.
What would the technical and cultural cost of moving to a different toolchain be?
The author seems to think that obviously moving to modern tools would be better.
Would it? Or would it just add to the chaos? Would build times really improve, would debugging become easier and more streamlined, would issue tracking improve?
My guess is that changing the entire culture to the point where there were real, measurable benefits would take from a few months to a year, with a lot of unproductive downtime.
The current toolchain is not optimal, but it still sort of works. And in a limited environment like set-top, it will probably continue to work.
Bottom line: don't innovate tools for the sake of it. Innovate if it's going to give you more customers and more profit. But not otherwise.