3 ms·

So OSes designed in the 70s are bad[1] but we'll use a language designed in the 50s because it's good. Old stuff is bad except when we like it, I guess. [1] A

• nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Architecture designed in the 70's to run common stuff on terrible computers was necessarily bad. There was solid architecture from 1960's-1980's that was great for management, reliability, security, and so on. HW was too expensive. The alternatives flourished on minicomputers and personal computers with tons of software built on them. Legacy effects took over from there with nobody able or willing to re-engineer everything from scratch or even existing, complex code. So, yes they suck. Yes superior architectures or languages of the time are worth copying or adopting over the knockoffs created due to hardware deficiencies. This is often even provable where one can look at problems that crop up in technology X caused by design point Y that's prevented by alternative design Z. And one of those alternatives was from 1961. ;)
• thecombjelly 11y ago
  OSes designed in the 70s aren't and weren't necessarily bad. It just depends on the circumstances. When they were written they fit the times quite well. But things have changed since then. Lisps have also changed since it was first created. Unlike many languages lisp has evolved tremendously over the years and has benefited from a tons of language research. The lisps we have today are much more than we had in the 60s.
  • TheCondor 11y ago
    Do you have any concrete examples of things that no longer fit well?