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_Bad_ software is a "service". Good software works for 15 years before you need to do anything.
by 0xbear 9y ago
_Bad_ software is a "service". Good software works for 15 years before you need to do anything.
- projectramo 9y agoI used to think so, but not anymore. Consider: you write perfect code, and you write the perfect web and mobile app. 1. Does it have a server? 2. What happens when everyone upgrades their browser? 3. What if everyone upgrades their iOS? It is not your fault that it may not work in 2 years, let alone 15.
- 0xbear 9y agoIn my book Craigslist is good software. Looks the same as it did 10 years ago, does the job, works in the shittiest browsers imaginable.
- jwcacces 9y agoIs there any chance in the world that Craigslist has not been continuously updated and maintained behind the scenes, regardless of the stability of the UI look and feel?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- projectramo 9y agoI agree with the points you made: 1. It is good software 2. It looks the same as it did 10 years ago Although I don't know for sure, I suspect it has been updated, modified, debugged and so on quite actively over the last 10 years.
- mgkimsal 9y agotheir business practices and model has changed some over the past 15+ years as well - some posts are charged for, more opportunities to report spam, etc. if it was 100% the same system it was 15 years ago, it wouldn't survive.
- jmknoll 9y agoA pretty basic example, but one which illustrates your earlier point pretty well. Even if we assume that it were a perfect piece of software 10 years ago, craigslist, at some point within the past few years, updated its CSS to include @media rules to display properly on mobile browsers. This update needed to be made in order to support an entire class of devices that didn't exist 10 years ago.
- s73ver 9y agoAre you trying to suggest that Craigslist hasn't been updated in that 10 years? The UI might not have, but I guarantee you that various changes in business direction and in regulation have required Craigslist to make changes to the software running their servers.
- burnstek 9y agoIt takes a large technical team to pull this off: https://www.craigslist.org/about/craigslist_is_hiring https://www.craigslist.org/about/craigslist_is_hiring
- city41 9y agoCraigslist has surely had to keep up with browser updates, new browsers, new mobile devices, etc. There's no way the Craigslist codebase of today is the same as 10 years ago.
- Splines 9y agoIt depends. For software that interacts with services, most certainly. Otherwise, consider emulators - games or applications written for platforms long gone can continue to run today, because that software was written (mostly) to some sort of standard.
- projectramo 9y agoMy only experience with emulators is trying to run Commodore 64 games, and in my experience they end in heart break usually when you beat one level and are about to go to the next one.
- clock_tower 9y agoSounds like C64 emulation isn't particularly robust or mature. For the opposite extreme of things, look at something like DOSBox or ZSNES.
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoWhich games, and which emulator(s)? I've done a fair bit of C64 emulation; setup is sometimes a pain, but I've never had any technical problems once the game loads.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]