Today’s episode of Conversations with Kip introduces a set of videos around the term Spaghetti Code.  Many systems are not understood by today’s developers because they do not understand the principles of the underlying systems.

Spaghetti code is intended to describe systems built with little structure.  They don’t use structured programming approaches, use a lot of “go-to” constructs, have poorly designed sub-routines and a great deal of coupling between what should be independent processes.

At times, though, the term is used to define systems for which the underlying processing patterns are not understood by the person assessing the system.  Many legacy financial systems were automated decades ago, and they have continued to operate very efficiently day after day after day.  I recently reviewed one such system that, although very old, with no segregation of infrastructure functions and business processes, operated nearly flawlessly for decades now.

This series of videos attempts to expose some of the principles behind these very old systems; principles that were first automated as tabulating systems.  Once the principles are exposed, the order and beauty of the system can be appreciated.

This is Episodes 157 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog there is. Literally learn more–about ledgers and financial systems–at LedgerLearning.com.

Next up: Tabulating System Program Structures.