Re: Insurers, banks, board of trade, government...
"actually produces the in-production machine code"
Is a very valid point, and not just from the aspect of someone editing the machine code to fix a minor bug without facing hours of compilation time.
You also have to deal with the problem that very likely what is archived was not the "last" version of what was compiled since not every project has good code management using CVS/SVN/GIT, etc and built-test cycles that are followed.
In one rather sad case a programmer I knew died and several months later the company had wiped and re-used he PC. Then around a year later they realised the in-use executables were build using a version that had been on that PC but had not been checked in to the central repository. Had they only bought a new HDD for the machine...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
