On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, DW downunder wrote:

"Mr Thant" wrote in message
...
On 13 July, 12:29, wrote:

Why are train building and railway infrastructure companies constantly
trying to re-invent the wheel? Why don't they just use one of the
systems running happily on the central line or DLR for gods sake or
has Not Invented Here Syndrome raised its ugly head again?

It is the system from the DLR.

.... and we've had some threads looking at how the DLR handles
temporary speed restrictions through a reboot of the computers, and
reports of trains overrunning stops, etc. Seems the DLR system isn't as
watertight or well-run as we'd thought.

This is a standard cycle in IT. System is procured, procurement goes a bit
wobbly, system is ********, people put up with it, a new procurement is
started to replace it, but that doesn't get the money it needs, or the
time, or the unified vision controlling it, or a good understanding of the
problem, or it just turns out that the problem was harder than people
think - oh and of course this time, it has to have some kind of backwards
compatibility or handover relationship with the first. The new system is
as ******** as the first, but in an exciting new way. People work like
mad, money gets spent, and nobody ever gets a working solution.

tom

--
Everyone has to die sooner or later, whether they be killed by germs,
crushed by a collapsing house, or blown to smithereens by an atom bomb. --
Mao Zedong