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> Why do people think that the universality of decay can be stopped? Theory: A lot of those people tend to survive by jumping from metaphorical ship to ship (A

> Why do people think that the universality of decay can be stopped? Theory: A lot of those people tend to survive by jumping from metaphorical ship to ship (API or software or whatever). So to them, the reality is that the ship you're currently on pretty much always feels like it's sinking, and you're always looking out for signs. You write articles lamenting sinking ships, because that's your reality. These people also may feel like the universality of decay can be stopped in the current context, by moving away from a decaying ship/system. It's more of a question of where the decay isn't as bad, or as seemingly needless. Example Pro: After a while you can get really good at evaluating ships. Con: It feels useless to build your own ship; you're afraid you'd have to jump from your own ship and wouldn't that feel awful. Other people survive by building ships. They're cool with decay, because building new stuff that works better is interesting. Their job is to support their stuff, and to a lesser degree to patch others' stuff, like maybe their supply ship, or a friend's ship. To people like this, the reality is that holes just happen. So you learn to deal. Maybe you even learn to love patching holes, and you get so good at building ships that your ship's holes are downright fascinating anyway. These people aren't usually as worried about decay. But they may have a problem of eventually going down with their ship, or finding that their ship is no longer just a ship but also a lot like a baroque form of floating junk pile. Example Pro: Obvs, you can build ships. Con: People will try to jump on your ship, and they'll probably tell you they think it's sinking, and expect you to do something about it.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
Is one of these examples showing why people think the universality of decay can be stopped? I was confused about that, because it seems to me like neither of them think that?
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  I added some bits to try and clarify. Just a dumb theory anyway, but in case it helps.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    thanks.
KronisLV 5y ago
Perhaps there is an expectation there, that we should be able to build something that would function without constant churn and effort on our part to prevent the code from rotting. For a second, ignoring safety concerns, what should change in how we serve some HTML, JS, CSS and some images in 20 years? Sure, there are plenty optimizations and new technologies to utilize for sites that need high performance or to use certain hardware functionality, but when you just want to display some simple content, none of that is really relevant. Why couldn't i build my personal website with some mostly static content and have it work for many years, while i'm not tied down with constantly maintaining it? Even now, that's not the case. I decided to build my own site in Ruby on Rails, since it feels mostly stable - however i need the exact same version of Ruby both on my local machine and the server for it to work (using containers for development isn't always a pleasant experience, even though using them for packaged software is great). I also need to rely on dozens if not hundreds of packages, as well as bunches of native extensions, for example, to connect with a SQLite database to serve some simple dynamic content. Of course, i also need to update the OS (thankfully Debian unattended upgrades are pretty stable, except for the one time when they broke GRUB entirely and the server couldn't boot), as well as the web server and there's no guarantee that the SSL/TLS certificate provisioning from Let's Encrypt also won't change in the future. To that end, the above goal is impossible - i can't just keep building new things, since i have to spend time maintaining what i've already built, even if nothing changes about what i need from these projects functionally, just because sooner or later a rug will be pulled out from under my feet. Edit: i've actually written a blog post on the topic of updates, called "Never update anything": https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/never-update-anything https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/never-update-anything
- thefr0g 5y ago
  > Ruby on Rails, since it feels mostly stable - however i need the exact same version of Ruby both on my local machine and the server for it to work Doesn't sound so stable to me… > Why couldn't i build my personal website with some mostly static content and have it work for many years, while i'm not tied down with constantly maintaining it? You can, HTTP still works and even oldschool HTML mostly works¹. If you only need sqlite as a db you could easily compile a static binary that will run forever (as in foreseeable future) and serve content via unencrypted HTTP. If you then use a reverse proxy that can be automated with certbot you will have a system where all the maintenance work is done by the EFF, the reverse proxy developers and your distro's packaging team. ¹ https://caniuse.com/?search=marquee https://caniuse.com/?search=marquee :D

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

Is one of these examples showing why people think the universality of decay can be stopped? I was confused about that, because it seems to me like neither of them think that?

themodelplumber 5y ago
I added some bits to try and clarify. Just a dumb theory anyway, but in case it helps.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  thanks.

KronisLV 5y ago

Perhaps there is an expectation there, that we should be able to build something that would function without constant churn and effort on our part to prevent the code from rotting. For a second, ignoring safety concerns, what should change in how we serve some HTML, JS, CSS and some images in 20 years? Sure, there are plenty optimizations and new technologies to utilize for sites that need high performance or to use certain hardware functionality, but when you just want to display some simple content, none of that is really relevant. Why couldn't i build my personal website with some mostly static content and have it work for many years, while i'm not tied down with constantly maintaining it? Even now, that's not the case. I decided to build my own site in Ruby on Rails, since it feels mostly stable - however i need the exact same version of Ruby both on my local machine and the server for it to work (using containers for development isn't always a pleasant experience, even though using them for packaged software is great). I also need to rely on dozens if not hundreds of packages, as well as bunches of native extensions, for example, to connect with a SQLite database to serve some simple dynamic content. Of course, i also need to update the OS (thankfully Debian unattended upgrades are pretty stable, except for the one time when they broke GRUB entirely and the server couldn't boot), as well as the web server and there's no guarantee that the SSL/TLS certificate provisioning from Let's Encrypt also won't change in the future. To that end, the above goal is impossible - i can't just keep building new things, since i have to spend time maintaining what i've already built, even if nothing changes about what i need from these projects functionally, just because sooner or later a rug will be pulled out from under my feet. Edit: i've actually written a blog post on the topic of updates, called "Never update anything": https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/never-update-anything https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/never-update-anything

thefr0g 5y ago
> Ruby on Rails, since it feels mostly stable - however i need the exact same version of Ruby both on my local machine and the server for it to work Doesn't sound so stable to me… > Why couldn't i build my personal website with some mostly static content and have it work for many years, while i'm not tied down with constantly maintaining it? You can, HTTP still works and even oldschool HTML mostly works¹. If you only need sqlite as a db you could easily compile a static binary that will run forever (as in foreseeable future) and serve content via unencrypted HTTP. If you then use a reverse proxy that can be automated with certbot you will have a system where all the maintenance work is done by the EFF, the reverse proxy developers and your distro's packaging team. ¹ https://caniuse.com/?search=marquee https://caniuse.com/?search=marquee :D