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So this works in theory until there is a really bad bug in some part of the code base and there is no one who knows how to fix it. Or it breaks some kind of mig

So this works in theory until there is a really bad bug in some part of the code base and there is no one who knows how to fix it. Or it breaks some kind of migration plan. Or it is embedded somewhere on some architecture that slows down an important projects development. or makes an application incompatible with a future OS If they’re not going to keep a team dedicated to keeping it alive, then you get into a situation where an emergency fix needs to be deployed or it needs to be abruptly cancelled It’s possible this already happened once or twice which is why they had to sunset it

kllrnohj 7y ago
> So this works in theory until there is a really bad bug in some part of the code base and there is no one who knows how to fix it. 10 years of production usage tends to have hammered out all the "really bad bugs." Sure it's possible that something goes wrong, but it's also extremely unlikely that it does unless something in it changes. Which, if you freeze it & silo it off, doesn't really happen. A huge amount of software not made in silicon valley operates exactly like this. It just sits there, running for decades, doing its thing.
- crehn 7y ago
  Still, the risk and maintenance/ownership burden is there.
  - kllrnohj 7y ago
    Yes, of course, but the point is it's a very, very small cost. It's basically zero for a company with Google's resources. Meanwhile killing it is actually costly. Not to engineering, but to PR and reputation.
- julianozen 7y ago
  I don't know. I'd bet anything that has been production for 10 years with no feature added means anybody who knows anything about it left ages ago. Its a cloud service that was started pre-Google Cloud. There is no way that it can sit in perpetuity and not be worried about old versions of Java, old OS, HTTPS bugs, large deprecation plans
wvenable 7y ago
Microsoft still patched products so old they had lost the source code by editing the binary itself!
- elijahwright 7y ago
  I've done this before. It's really fun!

kllrnohj 7y ago

> So this works in theory until there is a really bad bug in some part of the code base and there is no one who knows how to fix it. 10 years of production usage tends to have hammered out all the "really bad bugs." Sure it's possible that something goes wrong, but it's also extremely unlikely that it does unless something in it changes. Which, if you freeze it & silo it off, doesn't really happen. A huge amount of software not made in silicon valley operates exactly like this. It just sits there, running for decades, doing its thing.

crehn 7y ago
Still, the risk and maintenance/ownership burden is there.
- kllrnohj 7y ago
  Yes, of course, but the point is it's a very, very small cost. It's basically zero for a company with Google's resources. Meanwhile killing it is actually costly. Not to engineering, but to PR and reputation.
julianozen 7y ago
I don't know. I'd bet anything that has been production for 10 years with no feature added means anybody who knows anything about it left ages ago. Its a cloud service that was started pre-Google Cloud. There is no way that it can sit in perpetuity and not be worried about old versions of Java, old OS, HTTPS bugs, large deprecation plans

wvenable 7y ago

Microsoft still patched products so old they had lost the source code by editing the binary itself!

elijahwright 7y ago
I've done this before. It's really fun!