Record retention versus being a packrat  Proper record retention
policies require saying goodbye to the past.  This article
originally appeared on the BeyeNETWORK.  Do workers in the IT
profession ever decide to delete? Are we mostly packrats? Do
circumstances conspire to make us keep things forever?  The
other day I heard something shocking. In what year did IBM have
the most active number of IMS licenses? If you guessed 2004, you
go to the head of the class.  We also still have source code
from the 1960s. Yes, some of the code survived the year 2000
debacle.  Does anything ever disappear in our industry? Yes,
some things have been deleted. It has been a long time since I
have seen a punch card or a keypunch operator.  The old magnetic
tapes are still here, but have evolved. The old cases holding a
reel of tape waiting to be mounted by an operator are really
rare. Core memory is also hard to find.  What does withstand
 the test of time and manage to remain with us? Old applications
and database technology se