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For society as a whole I see negative utility in time wasted. Not all history is important to keep alive. You don't see people firing up coal fire steam engines

For society as a whole I see negative utility in time wasted. Not all history is important to keep alive. You don't see people firing up coal fire steam engines in their back yard. For the individual there may be some utility in such a hobby though. In life since we have a limited amount of time, we got to pick our priorities. Maybe maintaining a modern operating system on 30 year old esoteric hardware is rewarding to you. It wouldn't be for me. Neither of us have to justify our positions, however if I was looking at a resume and one kid put "Helped maintain netbsd/NeXT 2018-2021" and another put "Set up and maintained PostgreSQL based system for small business CRM," I would probably take the latter more seriously.

jraph 5y ago
Why? Most people have "non-contructive" hobbies and that's fine. Everybody is out there for taking pleasure in life. What do you do during your leisure time? I do hike among other things. That probably does not help society too much. If you need to fulfill a OS-related position you should definitively the former, all other things being equal, because they will probably be more qualified. If you need a DBA, sure, take the latter.
- morpheos137 5y ago
  >what I do in my leisure time. Sometimes I participate in HN. My understanding is that systems programming is not in demmand these days. Microsoft and Apple products are mature. There is not a proliferation of different hardware architectures to port to anymore. Almost nobody gets paid for systems programing in unix or linux unless you want to become an AIX programmer or maybe work in academia. Again, OS programming was the big thing in the late 1990s early 2000s. Now it is important that your OS just works and gets out of the way and lets you get real work done. Anyway I am done with this thread because I don't want to be accused of flaming.
  - the_only_law 5y ago
    While I agree that systems programming has nowhere near the demands of business application developer these days, “almost nobody” seems like a hyperbole. There are a number of jobs out there for Unix/Linux systems programmers. Driver development at hardware companies, all sorts of security software, etc.
  - jraph 5y ago
    Just a comment to say that I had no intent to piss you off, and I don't think you are flaming, just exposing your perspective. Maybe I should not have included my question on your hobbies. It was more for the readers, including you, to answer in their head.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - banned23211 5y ago
    New developers are born every day and these old systems provide all kinds of opportunities for learning. It's an historical preservation effort and an interesting intellectual challenge. Some programmers have very high IQ which makes them very curious. Low IQ programmers just don't get it, and never will.
zozbot234 5y ago
There are solid engineering reasons to keep support for these systems alive. They're comparatively simple and very well understood, so a well-maintained support for these "toy" systems can be used as a trusted reference even when working on more complex platforms.
mlyle 5y ago
> Not all history is important to keep alive. You don't see people firing up coal fire steam engines in their back yard. Actually, people do! I'm pretty grateful that people keep old steam engines going. The context of where we've been and how we've gotten here is important.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Also if there's some sort of global semi-apocalypse, we will likely need to fall back to some older technologies in order to keep some semblance of civilization going, where the alternative might be dropping back to a completely pre-industrial state.
- EricE 5y ago
  Indeed - context of how we've gotten here is VERY important. One of the better ST:TNG episodes was about this very topic: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708841/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708841/
phist_mcgee 5y ago
Reminds me of the old quote: "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."
nineteen999 5y ago
> For society as a whole I see negative utility in time wasted. Personally I find that a bizarre take. I imagine plenty of people could feel the same way about a comment you recently made: > Your phone could have one app...a web browser and maybe a few utilities like a calculator, calendar, clock. Even these could be implemented as web apps running in the browser. Also: > I was looking at a resume and one kid put "Helped maintain netbsd/NeXT 2018-2021" and another put "Set up and maintained PostgreSQL based system for small business CRM," I would probably take the latter more seriously. The former could almost certainly do the latter in a heartbeat, but the reverse is almost certainly not true in most cases.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

jraph 5y ago

Why? Most people have "non-contructive" hobbies and that's fine. Everybody is out there for taking pleasure in life. What do you do during your leisure time? I do hike among other things. That probably does not help society too much. If you need to fulfill a OS-related position you should definitively the former, all other things being equal, because they will probably be more qualified. If you need a DBA, sure, take the latter.

morpheos137 5y ago
>what I do in my leisure time. Sometimes I participate in HN. My understanding is that systems programming is not in demmand these days. Microsoft and Apple products are mature. There is not a proliferation of different hardware architectures to port to anymore. Almost nobody gets paid for systems programing in unix or linux unless you want to become an AIX programmer or maybe work in academia. Again, OS programming was the big thing in the late 1990s early 2000s. Now it is important that your OS just works and gets out of the way and lets you get real work done. Anyway I am done with this thread because I don't want to be accused of flaming.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  While I agree that systems programming has nowhere near the demands of business application developer these days, “almost nobody” seems like a hyperbole. There are a number of jobs out there for Unix/Linux systems programmers. Driver development at hardware companies, all sorts of security software, etc.
- jraph 5y ago
  Just a comment to say that I had no intent to piss you off, and I don't think you are flaming, just exposing your perspective. Maybe I should not have included my question on your hobbies. It was more for the readers, including you, to answer in their head.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- banned23211 5y ago
  New developers are born every day and these old systems provide all kinds of opportunities for learning. It's an historical preservation effort and an interesting intellectual challenge. Some programmers have very high IQ which makes them very curious. Low IQ programmers just don't get it, and never will.

zozbot234 5y ago

There are solid engineering reasons to keep support for these systems alive. They're comparatively simple and very well understood, so a well-maintained support for these "toy" systems can be used as a trusted reference even when working on more complex platforms.

mlyle 5y ago

> Not all history is important to keep alive. You don't see people firing up coal fire steam engines in their back yard. Actually, people do! I'm pretty grateful that people keep old steam engines going. The context of where we've been and how we've gotten here is important.

kelnos 5y ago
Also if there's some sort of global semi-apocalypse, we will likely need to fall back to some older technologies in order to keep some semblance of civilization going, where the alternative might be dropping back to a completely pre-industrial state.
EricE 5y ago
Indeed - context of how we've gotten here is VERY important. One of the better ST:TNG episodes was about this very topic: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708841/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708841/

phist_mcgee 5y ago

Reminds me of the old quote: "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."

nineteen999 5y ago

> For society as a whole I see negative utility in time wasted. Personally I find that a bizarre take. I imagine plenty of people could feel the same way about a comment you recently made: > Your phone could have one app...a web browser and maybe a few utilities like a calculator, calendar, clock. Even these could be implemented as web apps running in the browser. Also: > I was looking at a resume and one kid put "Helped maintain netbsd/NeXT 2018-2021" and another put "Set up and maintained PostgreSQL based system for small business CRM," I would probably take the latter more seriously. The former could almost certainly do the latter in a heartbeat, but the reverse is almost certainly not true in most cases.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]