5 ms·

Nobody Expects...

65 points by kencausey 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
laserdancepony 6y ago
What a pleasant surprise, there are people still debugging code from 1990.
- TonyTrapp 6y ago
  I occasionally reverse-engineer code from that era for fun and it's still very manageable. Imagine what it will be like reverse-engineering our current code in 30 years. Everything is just so much more complex.
  - stevekemp 6y ago
    I spent today patching a binary which was compiled in the 80s - an infocom interpreter of all things - so that I could play hitchhikers's guide to the galaxy on a single-board computer. So yes, people will probably keep doing things like this long after you think programs are obsolete.
- jka 6y ago
  Your comment makes me wonder what the largest elapsed time duration has been so far between the previous release of a popular software project and a confirmed, accepted bugfix. (naturally it'd be easier to determine that for free/open source projects, although only a subset of the overall space) Edit: add the word 'popular', to potentially make the answer more widely-accessible by filtering out tiny/niche projects
  - jka 6y ago
    Self-reply: perhaps an easier way to express this question would be: "What is the most reliable popular software product in use today, determined by the absence of reported bugs?"
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - petemir 6y ago
    Probably just one example: Mozilla fixed a 14-year-old bug in Firefox https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10274245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10274245
    - jka 6y ago
      Impressive - tagged for mozilla 0.91 in the bugtracker twenty (!) years ago. I didn't express the criteria I had in mind very clearly; I'd been wondering about longest elapsed time without any other bugreports occurring (ruling out Mozilla, and probably many other large codebases). Essentially trying to determine ways to find the best-known examples of stable and reliable widely-used software.
      - bombcar 6y ago
        TeX and METAFont just had bug fix releases after 7 years or something.
        jka 6y ago
        Thanks - good examples. That also led me to https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html which is a unique curiosity. Do you know if that was a 7-year duration from previous release to bug discovery, or a 7-year duration between releases?
        bombcar 6y ago
        It’s the latter (and not sure if it is 7 years) - but Knuth only looks at big reports periodically (and he has people who scrub them for him) and has declared that upon his death any remaining bugs are features and the code will cease changing. The bugs are super obscure edge cases now - I suppose if someone found an extremely severe bug Knuth would release earlier than the next planned interval. http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130knuth-tuneup21.pdf http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130knuth-tuneup21.pdf has further details. It’s from a different time where programs could be considered to have a “final form” and be completed. True software engineering.
  - imglorp 6y ago
    Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls had a latent bug in its binary search program for 20 years. This is so humbling. Not only did the master miss this, despite proving it correct, but also the Java and C++ library authors. https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about...
    - ant6n 6y ago
      That website is borked, half the content is off screen on mobile.
      - high_priest 6y ago
        What in the world means "borked"? Is it some kind of hybrid of "botched" and "broken"?
        owyn 6y ago
        Ha yes, exactly. There are a few different meanings based on context. But it's primarily just one of those fun sounding nonsense words that I also like to say. Not sure where I picked it up from. It is usable in any sentence as a drop in like a G-rated "fucked". There's the nonsensical swedish chef muppet catch phrase "bork bork bork", but he usually says that before everything goes wrong. There was also a judge named "Bork" who was "borked" when his nomination to the supreme court was blocked. I feel like "borked" is probably of a vintage like "fubared" which is a WW2 thing.
  - kencausey 6y ago
    Funny. I just watched this video from 8-Bit Show and Tell last night: https://youtu.be/dG_oZV6s0Zg https://youtu.be/dG_oZV6s0Zg . This bug appears to be from 1978. Of course, we have no idea if this time was the first time the bug was discovered.
- kpgraham 6y ago
  I programmed MASM in the 1990s and found myself deciding exactly where to put the 90H bytes in order to make the code work. It is good to see this stuff.
sloshnmosh 6y ago
I was thinking this was going to be an article on the Spanish Inquisition. (Sorry)
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  It is not the Spanish Inquisition if you expect it.
anonymousiam 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ncJ6ciGyM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ncJ6ciGyM At least the code can be easily patched. Back in those days there was no driver signing, but some code would validate checksum/CRC (which is pretty easy to overcome). I doubt that there was any checking at all in the NE2000 driver. From last week, another NE2000 article from the same site: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/was-the-ne2000-really-that-bad/ http://www.os2museum.com/wp/was-the-ne2000-really-that-bad/

Nobody Expects...

65 points by kencausey 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

laserdancepony 6y ago

What a pleasant surprise, there are people still debugging code from 1990.

TonyTrapp 6y ago
I occasionally reverse-engineer code from that era for fun and it's still very manageable. Imagine what it will be like reverse-engineering our current code in 30 years. Everything is just so much more complex.
- stevekemp 6y ago
  I spent today patching a binary which was compiled in the 80s - an infocom interpreter of all things - so that I could play hitchhikers's guide to the galaxy on a single-board computer. So yes, people will probably keep doing things like this long after you think programs are obsolete.
jka 6y ago
Your comment makes me wonder what the largest elapsed time duration has been so far between the previous release of a popular software project and a confirmed, accepted bugfix. (naturally it'd be easier to determine that for free/open source projects, although only a subset of the overall space) Edit: add the word 'popular', to potentially make the answer more widely-accessible by filtering out tiny/niche projects
- jka 6y ago
  Self-reply: perhaps an easier way to express this question would be: "What is the most reliable popular software product in use today, determined by the absence of reported bugs?"
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- petemir 6y ago
  Probably just one example: Mozilla fixed a 14-year-old bug in Firefox https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10274245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10274245
  - jka 6y ago
    Impressive - tagged for mozilla 0.91 in the bugtracker twenty (!) years ago. I didn't express the criteria I had in mind very clearly; I'd been wondering about longest elapsed time without any other bugreports occurring (ruling out Mozilla, and probably many other large codebases). Essentially trying to determine ways to find the best-known examples of stable and reliable widely-used software.
    - bombcar 6y ago
      TeX and METAFont just had bug fix releases after 7 years or something.
      - jka 6y ago
        Thanks - good examples. That also led me to https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html which is a unique curiosity. Do you know if that was a 7-year duration from previous release to bug discovery, or a 7-year duration between releases?
        bombcar 6y ago
        It’s the latter (and not sure if it is 7 years) - but Knuth only looks at big reports periodically (and he has people who scrub them for him) and has declared that upon his death any remaining bugs are features and the code will cease changing. The bugs are super obscure edge cases now - I suppose if someone found an extremely severe bug Knuth would release earlier than the next planned interval. http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130knuth-tuneup21.pdf http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130knuth-tuneup21.pdf has further details. It’s from a different time where programs could be considered to have a “final form” and be completed. True software engineering.
- imglorp 6y ago
  Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls had a latent bug in its binary search program for 20 years. This is so humbling. Not only did the master miss this, despite proving it correct, but also the Java and C++ library authors. https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about...
  - ant6n 6y ago
    That website is borked, half the content is off screen on mobile.
    - high_priest 6y ago
      What in the world means "borked"? Is it some kind of hybrid of "botched" and "broken"?
      - owyn 6y ago
        Ha yes, exactly. There are a few different meanings based on context. But it's primarily just one of those fun sounding nonsense words that I also like to say. Not sure where I picked it up from. It is usable in any sentence as a drop in like a G-rated "fucked". There's the nonsensical swedish chef muppet catch phrase "bork bork bork", but he usually says that before everything goes wrong. There was also a judge named "Bork" who was "borked" when his nomination to the supreme court was blocked. I feel like "borked" is probably of a vintage like "fubared" which is a WW2 thing.
- kencausey 6y ago
  Funny. I just watched this video from 8-Bit Show and Tell last night: https://youtu.be/dG_oZV6s0Zg https://youtu.be/dG_oZV6s0Zg . This bug appears to be from 1978. Of course, we have no idea if this time was the first time the bug was discovered.
kpgraham 6y ago
I programmed MASM in the 1990s and found myself deciding exactly where to put the 90H bytes in order to make the code work. It is good to see this stuff.

sloshnmosh 6y ago

I was thinking this was going to be an article on the Spanish Inquisition. (Sorry)

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
It is not the Spanish Inquisition if you expect it.

anonymousiam 6y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ncJ6ciGyM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ncJ6ciGyM At least the code can be easily patched. Back in those days there was no driver signing, but some code would validate checksum/CRC (which is pretty easy to overcome). I doubt that there was any checking at all in the NE2000 driver. From last week, another NE2000 article from the same site: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/was-the-ne2000-really-that-bad/ http://www.os2museum.com/wp/was-the-ne2000-really-that-bad/