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>but it's also true that over a long enough timescale (100 years, to trigger a reductio ad absurdum) there is a very high risk that not replacing or rewriting t

by ksk 11y ago

>but it's also true that over a long enough timescale (100 years, to trigger a reductio ad absurdum) there is a very high risk that not replacing or rewriting that code will sink your technology and possibly your organization. Could you elaborate on what basis you claim this as a truth?

humanrebar 11y ago
It's largely conjecture, admittedly. But there are very few pieces of software that last 40 years. Most companies don't plan to be out of business in the next 40 years. And many tech companies have gone out of business in even the last ten years because they weren't agile enough to adapt quickly to new technological changes.
- ksk 11y ago
  While I agree that in the abstract, technical debt can catch up to you, I'm just not sure that its impact is necessarily such that it cannot be contained or mitigated. I mean UNIX is still around for 30 odd years. It hasn't sunk. It carries tremendous technical debt, in terms of bad design, in terms of implementation bugs that need to be carried forward, etc. My sense is that the more organizations that depend on a piece of tech, the more chance there is that it is going to age well, warts and all.
- bcbrown 11y ago
  I don't think that argument holds. Usually it's true, that if something hasn't lasted a long time, it likely won't last a long time in the future. But we live at a quasi-special time, close to a boundary condition. There exists no software that has existed for 100 years, because software was invented sometime in the past hundred years. You can reductio ad absurdum that argument by saying, the week after the first software was written, that no pieces of software have lasted more than a week, and therefore very few pieces of software will last more than a week. So very few pieces of software have lasted 40 years, because very few pieces of software were written at least 40 years ago.

by ksk 11y ago

humanrebar 11y ago

It's largely conjecture, admittedly. But there are very few pieces of software that last 40 years. Most companies don't plan to be out of business in the next 40 years. And many tech companies have gone out of business in even the last ten years because they weren't agile enough to adapt quickly to new technological changes.

ksk 11y ago
While I agree that in the abstract, technical debt can catch up to you, I'm just not sure that its impact is necessarily such that it cannot be contained or mitigated. I mean UNIX is still around for 30 odd years. It hasn't sunk. It carries tremendous technical debt, in terms of bad design, in terms of implementation bugs that need to be carried forward, etc. My sense is that the more organizations that depend on a piece of tech, the more chance there is that it is going to age well, warts and all.
bcbrown 11y ago
I don't think that argument holds. Usually it's true, that if something hasn't lasted a long time, it likely won't last a long time in the future. But we live at a quasi-special time, close to a boundary condition. There exists no software that has existed for 100 years, because software was invented sometime in the past hundred years. You can reductio ad absurdum that argument by saying, the week after the first software was written, that no pieces of software have lasted more than a week, and therefore very few pieces of software will last more than a week. So very few pieces of software have lasted 40 years, because very few pieces of software were written at least 40 years ago.