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It seems inevitable that much of the practical knowledge is lost. Look at how few old sailing ships survive, despite that being the most advanced transportatio

It seems inevitable that much of the practical knowledge is lost. Look at how few old sailing ships survive, despite that being the most advanced transportation technology for centuries. The schematics of the engines will survive, but future generations who study them will struggle to understand the design choices that went into them. I’m happy that might change in the world of software, since so much collaboration is done online, and future historians will have troves of JIRA tickets to dig through.

benrbray 6y ago
Will they? Most companies' internal systems are locked down and we'll suffer the same problem. Open source is the best way we have right now to preserve software knowledge.
- akamaka 6y ago
  I’d bet the hosted services will hold onto data forever, so that they can mine it.
ehnto 6y ago
One advantage ICE has over the historical preservation of sail is that cars as a collectors item are far easier to keep around, and much of the design artifacts will last much longer. It's unlikely ICE cars will be banned from being driven in the next 30 years, if ever. Once electric is proliferated the effects of car enthusiasts will be negligible. Even if there are some bans, motorsport will hopefully continue. Many car manufacturers run heritage parts programs and there is already a well established industry for maintaining the collector and enthusiast car fleet that has nothing to do with the new car cycle. People are engineering entirely new parts for old cars all the time, we won't be forgetting how ICE works for a while yet. Although the goal of all that engineering effort may shift from efficiency to efficacy in the form of motorsports parts. I fully expect to have to keep barrels of E85 at my house so I can take my soon to be heritage vehicle to the track every now and then, but I don't see us forgetting how to engineer for combustion engines.
tablespoon 6y ago
> The schematics of the engines will survive, but future generations who study them will struggle to understand the design choices that went into them. > I’m happy that might change in the world of software, since so much collaboration is done online, and future historians will have troves of JIRA tickets to dig through. I doubt it. In my experience, JIRA tickets don't capture much information like that. Also, my employer at least has trouble maintaining actual design documents over the long term [1] that stuff that everyone views as transient has pretty much no chance. Also, a lot of collaboration tools, while technically being more archiveable (e.g. slack, typical meeting recordings), are in practice so disorganized that they are rarely even useful as a long term reference for the teams that use them. Unless the team's software is truly world changing, I don't think any historians would bother. Personally, I think the kinds of very formal processes that are unfashionable in the world of software are the ones that are most capable of capturing the reasoning behind design choices for future generations. [1] stuff is spread across so many places, and a lot gets when we migrate from one enterprise collaboration system to another, or as teams reorganize.
- jhanschoo 6y ago
  > while technically being more archiveable (e.g. slack, typical meeting recordings), are in practice so disorganized Think of all the papers this will produce for future historians!
- 6pac3rings 6y ago
  A team of six or eight should have a dedicated scribe to link everything that is going on in one coherent whole. That role functions as the interface to the team and onboards new team member when people move on. A team without a scribe creates a new opening for that role for a noob to learn by doing.

benrbray 6y ago

Will they? Most companies' internal systems are locked down and we'll suffer the same problem. Open source is the best way we have right now to preserve software knowledge.

akamaka 6y ago
I’d bet the hosted services will hold onto data forever, so that they can mine it.

ehnto 6y ago

One advantage ICE has over the historical preservation of sail is that cars as a collectors item are far easier to keep around, and much of the design artifacts will last much longer. It's unlikely ICE cars will be banned from being driven in the next 30 years, if ever. Once electric is proliferated the effects of car enthusiasts will be negligible. Even if there are some bans, motorsport will hopefully continue. Many car manufacturers run heritage parts programs and there is already a well established industry for maintaining the collector and enthusiast car fleet that has nothing to do with the new car cycle. People are engineering entirely new parts for old cars all the time, we won't be forgetting how ICE works for a while yet. Although the goal of all that engineering effort may shift from efficiency to efficacy in the form of motorsports parts. I fully expect to have to keep barrels of E85 at my house so I can take my soon to be heritage vehicle to the track every now and then, but I don't see us forgetting how to engineer for combustion engines.

tablespoon 6y ago

> The schematics of the engines will survive, but future generations who study them will struggle to understand the design choices that went into them. > I’m happy that might change in the world of software, since so much collaboration is done online, and future historians will have troves of JIRA tickets to dig through. I doubt it. In my experience, JIRA tickets don't capture much information like that. Also, my employer at least has trouble maintaining actual design documents over the long term [1] that stuff that everyone views as transient has pretty much no chance. Also, a lot of collaboration tools, while technically being more archiveable (e.g. slack, typical meeting recordings), are in practice so disorganized that they are rarely even useful as a long term reference for the teams that use them. Unless the team's software is truly world changing, I don't think any historians would bother. Personally, I think the kinds of very formal processes that are unfashionable in the world of software are the ones that are most capable of capturing the reasoning behind design choices for future generations. [1] stuff is spread across so many places, and a lot gets when we migrate from one enterprise collaboration system to another, or as teams reorganize.

jhanschoo 6y ago
> while technically being more archiveable (e.g. slack, typical meeting recordings), are in practice so disorganized Think of all the papers this will produce for future historians!
6pac3rings 6y ago
A team of six or eight should have a dedicated scribe to link everything that is going on in one coherent whole. That role functions as the interface to the team and onboards new team member when people move on. A team without a scribe creates a new opening for that role for a noob to learn by doing.