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> If you publish software, then one day, eventually, the platform that your software originally ran on will either disappear or change enough that your software
by rvense 5y ago
> If you publish software, then one day, eventually, the platform that your software originally ran on will either disappear or change enough that your software will no longer run.
You make it sound like this is inevitable. It's the byproduct of a bunch of other decisions, only some of which are intentional. As you say, mainframes. If we wanted to secure longevity, we could. Unfortunately, this churn is very profitable for a lot of the people who, given a free market, decide whether we will do that or not.
- jchw 5y agoOver a long enough timescale, it basically is inevitable, because no assumption is safe in unbounded time. There is that “technically” bit where you could just emulate the legacy, but as seen with Flash it’s easier said than done. (We could do better if we disregard copyright, but it wouldn’t be easy.)