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> I can still install Excel 97 if I want to That's the survivor bias. There's plenty of things that you can no longer install and the things you can still ins

by dwild 9y ago

> I can still install Excel 97 if I want to That's the survivor bias. There's plenty of things that you can no longer install and the things you can still install, it's mostly because there's someone that maintains their API and whatnot (thus, the company hasn't gone out of business or haven't decided not to maintains it). Look at games, GOG has an R&D department to make sure you can run the games on their platform. I'm pretty sure there's a ton of people here that can talk about some old computer or VM that they have to keep up because of old legacy stuff. > I mean, there is perceptible lag in character entry that never used to happen. Sure, my computer used to freeze inexplicably, but Atom crashes often enough that I don't consider that a win, and text has a noticeable delay before it appears on the screen when using Atom. Text entry is something I can implement flawlessly on a microcontroller and the majority of applications I use on a daily basis get it wrong. Who forced you to use Atom? That's your decision to use something still heavily in development using some new technologies (not meant to be faster or more stable, just easier to develop into). It's like buying a bicycle and complaining it doesn't go as fast as the car you had before.

finchisko 9y ago
Exactly. When somebody uses Atom, he cannot complain about performance compared to compiled apps. And saying this as huge fan of Atom.
tomc1985 9y ago
GOG only makes easy what the community and nerds have been doing for years. GOG made a business out of it because they pay people to "maintain" the "API". Their products are not under active maintenance nor development. Now, if there WAS a company paying for all that maintenance it would be Microsoft, with their almost religious commitment to backwards compatibility.
- dwild 9y ago
  > Their products are not under active maintenance nor development. Isn't it the same? Someone that directly update the app to newer API or someone that update an API to make sure the older apps are still running is pretty much the same at the end. Someone has to do that work. There's someone that pay for it, whether it's nerds by their time, or Microsoft by their backward compatibility support. Even for Microsoft, at the end of the day, you pay that price through your next Windows license, and still, they may decide not to keep supporting some of it (16 bits programs are no longer supported over 64 bits for example). It's not different from a subscription model, except that instead of paying a fortune to support most things (which may not include what you actually need), you pay only to keep support over the product you actually use and need. I'm not saying subscription models or cloud application are amazing, but being able to keep running your old apps is not the norm and is mostly made possible because there's someone that pay for it for you. At least in a subscription model, that relation is pretty direct, you pay for the software to keep working, unlike hoping that Windows invest into that old techs to make sure they keep running.
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    "but being able to keep running your old apps is not the norm" Only for the cloud cohort. Not all of us drink the kool-aid! Try living in a computing environment where the technology-rug isn't pulled out from under you every three months. Both Windows and Linux have not had core changes to their API. The fundamentals of application programming haven't changed in decades. Why shouldn't we allow old apps to run?
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    I've got a good-sized collection of vintage hardware and software. Microsoft stops supporting something? All well, I've got my older versions still available. They don't get updates, but for the most part, I didn't expect them to when I bought them. > you pay only to keep support over the product you actually use and need. And you pay it over and over again. Until you don't need it (which might be because they removed some feature you were relying on, with no recourse). > but being able to keep running your old apps is not the norm Losing access to my old apps isn't the norm, unless I choose to let go of control over my own computer's software.

by dwild 9y ago

finchisko 9y ago

Exactly. When somebody uses Atom, he cannot complain about performance compared to compiled apps. And saying this as huge fan of Atom.

tomc1985 9y ago

GOG only makes easy what the community and nerds have been doing for years. GOG made a business out of it because they pay people to "maintain" the "API". Their products are not under active maintenance nor development. Now, if there WAS a company paying for all that maintenance it would be Microsoft, with their almost religious commitment to backwards compatibility.

dwild 9y ago
> Their products are not under active maintenance nor development. Isn't it the same? Someone that directly update the app to newer API or someone that update an API to make sure the older apps are still running is pretty much the same at the end. Someone has to do that work. There's someone that pay for it, whether it's nerds by their time, or Microsoft by their backward compatibility support. Even for Microsoft, at the end of the day, you pay that price through your next Windows license, and still, they may decide not to keep supporting some of it (16 bits programs are no longer supported over 64 bits for example). It's not different from a subscription model, except that instead of paying a fortune to support most things (which may not include what you actually need), you pay only to keep support over the product you actually use and need. I'm not saying subscription models or cloud application are amazing, but being able to keep running your old apps is not the norm and is mostly made possible because there's someone that pay for it for you. At least in a subscription model, that relation is pretty direct, you pay for the software to keep working, unlike hoping that Windows invest into that old techs to make sure they keep running.
- tomc1985 9y ago
  "but being able to keep running your old apps is not the norm" Only for the cloud cohort. Not all of us drink the kool-aid! Try living in a computing environment where the technology-rug isn't pulled out from under you every three months. Both Windows and Linux have not had core changes to their API. The fundamentals of application programming haven't changed in decades. Why shouldn't we allow old apps to run?
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I've got a good-sized collection of vintage hardware and software. Microsoft stops supporting something? All well, I've got my older versions still available. They don't get updates, but for the most part, I didn't expect them to when I bought them. > you pay only to keep support over the product you actually use and need. And you pay it over and over again. Until you don't need it (which might be because they removed some feature you were relying on, with no recourse). > but being able to keep running your old apps is not the norm Losing access to my old apps isn't the norm, unless I choose to let go of control over my own computer's software.