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For computers to be used forever, we must accept that the code written for a computer can be outlived by the form factor. So what persists throughout time is no

For computers to be used forever, we must accept that the code written for a computer can be outlived by the form factor. So what persists throughout time is not necessarily code but ideas. So I want people to create whitepapers and document their learnings of their project and industry projects so others can learn from their lessons. The good ideas should be passed on through time. For example, NES/Playstation/Switch/Xbox/PC game sourcecode are essentially one-shot projects, the code is not mutated much after release except for bug fixes whereas general purpose computing the code must be adapted over time to cope with changes in the world. The lineage of code written for these game consoles and old PCs, amiga and commodore are all ending. But the ideas behind that code persists. For example, the code of Pentium Windows 95 tower probably doesn't resemble the code of Windows 11 anymore. And the tower CPU is very similar. You can probably see ideas in the code there but everything else is different. All the lessons of DOS, Amiga, Commodore and other old retro computers and minicomputers such as PDP-11 and IBM mainframes should all be learned and passed on. We want software ideas that are durable and last forever. File systems are an idea that are durable. Processes are an idea that are durable. I do wonder how many young people possess the capacity to writing an operating system today. The skills have been long fought by Linus and other operating system developers throughout time. I want people to document the lessons and implementation notes of various low level system services. The UNIX POSIX API is durable. I'm writing this on an Intel 10th generation NUC and it is plenty fast for running Ubuntu virtual machines and running IntelliJ on Windows 11. It has an Intel Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10710U CPU @ 1.10GHz, 1608 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s) I suspect I can get a lot of usage out of this computer and move homes more than once if need be. The computer is only 4 inches by 4 inches so it is easily transportable. Another idea that needs to persist is the idea of archive quality formats. PDF, JPEG, Markdown shall probably be readable in 10 years time. But other document formats maybe not so much.

vlovich123 4y ago
> For example, NES/Playstation/Switch/Xbox/PC game sourcecode are essentially one-shot projects, the code is not mutated much after release except for bug fixes whereas general purpose computing the code must be adapted over time to cope with changes in the world. The lineage of code written for these game consoles and old PCs, amiga and commodore are all ending. But the ideas behind that code persists. This doesn’t sound right to me. Sports games for example reuse much of the old game (NHL 2022 reuses a lot of code from 2021). Additionally almost all games use a standard game engine (in-house or external) and that engine is reused across many titles. That engine incorporates those learnings. It’s very hard to build anything if you’re constantly starting from scratch. I think you’re heavily discounting just how often existing code is reused.
- samsquire 4y ago
  Game engines are what we want. I would like cross polination of computing ideas within the computer industry. To run a modern software stack I need to do a lot of work. Even more work to package for Linux and be cross platform and multi platform on mobile. There's a neverending supply of work to be done. Who is downstream of who? Who is upstream of who? I'm surprised there isn't a map of this. I'm saying this work of integrating what other people has done is an end of line lineage. Or it's a lineage of its own that never integrates with others. Linux distributors collect software written by multiple other people and incorporate learnings from getting them working together seamlessly. But there's no shortage of linux distributions. If I say Ubuntu 18 or Ubuntu 22 people know that's a solid base to build upon. But anything I build upon doesn't necessarily get merged upstream for other people to build upon. The lineage essentially ends there and there, it only goes on within its own line. Do linux distributions merge? With games, the game is stripped of some assets and then new assets are added and new logic is added and that's a new game. But only the game company of that game and players of that game benefits from that game, except for the inspiration for lookalikes or clones with other separate lineages. To come back to the article, I want a computer infrastructure that isn't obsolete as soon I deploy it. So that's requires lineage merging and project merging.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    I really don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. > Do linux distributions merge? What does this mean to you? The vast majority of Linux distributions are based on the same sets of packages and any work done by one tends to be upstreamed and cross pollinates. > To come back to the article, I want a computer infrastructure that isn't obsolete as soon I deploy it. Can you give an example of something that is obsolete as soon as you deploy it? The slowing down of electronics manufacturing actually is ossifying things more. A computer in 5 years won’t look that different from a computer today whereas in the 90s that wasn’t as true. That being said, a computer today architecturally is quite similar. > With games, the game is stripped of some assets and then new assets are added and new logic is added and that's a new game. But only the game company of that game and players of that game benefits from that game, except for the inspiration for lookalikes or clones with other separate lineages. What would it look like for asset and gameplay changes to NHL 2022 be integrated in a beneficial way for Call of Duty? I think you’re negating the existence of path dependence. There’s sometimes no way to “merge” between paths and that’s not avoidable. Not all ideas are compatible - how would you “merge” that? And different circumstances call for different approaches. > I would like cross polination of computing ideas within the computer industry. We have that. That’s what software and hardware libraries are. Heck, we have repositories in almost every language now that makes it trivial to drop in an existing component. You can even often times see the source code / patch it / push changes upstream

vlovich123 4y ago

> For example, NES/Playstation/Switch/Xbox/PC game sourcecode are essentially one-shot projects, the code is not mutated much after release except for bug fixes whereas general purpose computing the code must be adapted over time to cope with changes in the world. The lineage of code written for these game consoles and old PCs, amiga and commodore are all ending. But the ideas behind that code persists. This doesn’t sound right to me. Sports games for example reuse much of the old game (NHL 2022 reuses a lot of code from 2021). Additionally almost all games use a standard game engine (in-house or external) and that engine is reused across many titles. That engine incorporates those learnings. It’s very hard to build anything if you’re constantly starting from scratch. I think you’re heavily discounting just how often existing code is reused.

samsquire 4y ago
Game engines are what we want. I would like cross polination of computing ideas within the computer industry. To run a modern software stack I need to do a lot of work. Even more work to package for Linux and be cross platform and multi platform on mobile. There's a neverending supply of work to be done. Who is downstream of who? Who is upstream of who? I'm surprised there isn't a map of this. I'm saying this work of integrating what other people has done is an end of line lineage. Or it's a lineage of its own that never integrates with others. Linux distributors collect software written by multiple other people and incorporate learnings from getting them working together seamlessly. But there's no shortage of linux distributions. If I say Ubuntu 18 or Ubuntu 22 people know that's a solid base to build upon. But anything I build upon doesn't necessarily get merged upstream for other people to build upon. The lineage essentially ends there and there, it only goes on within its own line. Do linux distributions merge? With games, the game is stripped of some assets and then new assets are added and new logic is added and that's a new game. But only the game company of that game and players of that game benefits from that game, except for the inspiration for lookalikes or clones with other separate lineages. To come back to the article, I want a computer infrastructure that isn't obsolete as soon I deploy it. So that's requires lineage merging and project merging.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  I really don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. > Do linux distributions merge? What does this mean to you? The vast majority of Linux distributions are based on the same sets of packages and any work done by one tends to be upstreamed and cross pollinates. > To come back to the article, I want a computer infrastructure that isn't obsolete as soon I deploy it. Can you give an example of something that is obsolete as soon as you deploy it? The slowing down of electronics manufacturing actually is ossifying things more. A computer in 5 years won’t look that different from a computer today whereas in the 90s that wasn’t as true. That being said, a computer today architecturally is quite similar. > With games, the game is stripped of some assets and then new assets are added and new logic is added and that's a new game. But only the game company of that game and players of that game benefits from that game, except for the inspiration for lookalikes or clones with other separate lineages. What would it look like for asset and gameplay changes to NHL 2022 be integrated in a beneficial way for Call of Duty? I think you’re negating the existence of path dependence. There’s sometimes no way to “merge” between paths and that’s not avoidable. Not all ideas are compatible - how would you “merge” that? And different circumstances call for different approaches. > I would like cross polination of computing ideas within the computer industry. We have that. That’s what software and hardware libraries are. Heck, we have repositories in almost every language now that makes it trivial to drop in an existing component. You can even often times see the source code / patch it / push changes upstream