4 ms·

> The "wheel" is 40 years old. It's a great wheel, it's doing a hell of a job. But with 40 years of perspective, maybe it actually can be re-invented better wit

> The "wheel" is 40 years old. It's a great wheel, it's doing a hell of a job. But with 40 years of perspective, maybe it actually can be re-invented better without carrying around a pile of legacy back-compatibility needs. Newer is rarely better. Besides, in computing, so many "new" things are just rehashes of old (and not so old) ideas. I really wish we could get away from the "that software is old" meme in this industry.

jay-anderson 9y ago
Old software often had requirements or made design decisions based on assumptions that aren't true anymore. These can make it more difficult to deal with or extend. I agree that in general we should just use the old software that works. However big projects like fuscia can reap some long term benefits. In the end it's a cost/benefit analysis to decide.
- gnufx 9y ago
  Well, the context that shaped old software has a habit of re-appearing, so the design decisions/trades-off may have become relevant again at least once since. The first vectorized code I saw was a relic from a long-gone Cray 1.
IshKebab 9y ago
What? New software is usually better, or do you think people never improve anything? That just makes no sense.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Of course software improves. The context was BSD, Posix, etc are based on 40 year old tech. Those systems got a lot right and it takes a hell of a lot of hubris to think just because it’s 40 years old it is somehow not good anymore.
sverige 9y ago
One great advantage of old software that has been continuously developed by the same core of people is that when new features are added, they have the benefit of being informed by all the past failures and near-misses. And they are almost always features that are actually new. New software, otoh, hasn't been through a 40-year shakedown cruise.

4 ms·

> The "wheel" is 40 years old. It's a great wheel, it's doing a hell of a job. But with 40 years of perspective, maybe it actually can be re-invented better wit

by JustSomeNobody 9y ago

jay-anderson 9y ago
Old software often had requirements or made design decisions based on assumptions that aren't true anymore. These can make it more difficult to deal with or extend. I agree that in general we should just use the old software that works. However big projects like fuscia can reap some long term benefits. In the end it's a cost/benefit analysis to decide.
- gnufx 9y ago
  Well, the context that shaped old software has a habit of re-appearing, so the design decisions/trades-off may have become relevant again at least once since. The first vectorized code I saw was a relic from a long-gone Cray 1.
IshKebab 9y ago
What? New software is usually better, or do you think people never improve anything? That just makes no sense.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Of course software improves. The context was BSD, Posix, etc are based on 40 year old tech. Those systems got a lot right and it takes a hell of a lot of hubris to think just because it’s 40 years old it is somehow not good anymore.
sverige 9y ago
One great advantage of old software that has been continuously developed by the same core of people is that when new features are added, they have the benefit of being informed by all the past failures and near-misses. And they are almost always features that are actually new. New software, otoh, hasn't been through a 40-year shakedown cruise.