Correct. The other "leg" of a solution to this problem would be to codify migration practices so stagnation at the tech level is a non issue long-term.
But after you did it, you'd still have exactly the same problem. The cause was not related to deserialization. That part worked perfectly. The problem is the business logic that applied to the model after the message was parsed.
I think this won't work: no one really wants to touch a system that works, and people will try to find any excuse to avoid migrating.
The reason of this is that everyone prefers systems that work and fails in known way rather new systems that no one knows how can it fail.
Does the system work if it randomly fails and collapses the entire system for days?
People generally prefer to be lazy and to not use their brains, show up, and receive a paycheck for the minimum amount of effort. Not to be rude, but that's where this attitude originates. Having a codified process means that attitude can't exist because you're given all of the tools you need to solve the problem.
> Having a codified process means that attitude can't exist because you're given all of the tools you need to solve the problem.
Yes, but in real life doesn't work.
Processes have corner cases. As you said, people are lazy and will do everything to find the corner case to fit in.
Just an example from the banking sector.
There are processes (and even laws) that force banks to use only certified, supported and regularly patched software: there are still a lot of Windows 2000 servers in their datacenters and will be there for many years.
