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>> "No longer support writing on papyrus, in favor of more modern vellum based media." > And then, the Dark Ages. Nitpick, but IIRC vellum is far more durable

>> "No longer support writing on papyrus, in favor of more modern vellum based media." > And then, the Dark Ages. Nitpick, but IIRC vellum is far more durable and long-lived than papyrus. > Of course, backwards compatibilty will be maintained: at least to the end of the century? > Digital culture is already so ethereal, fragile, that you have to wonder if millennia from now our descendents may posit this period as another "dark age" because none of what we've generated since the 90s will remain (or be decypherable). One of the ways software engineers (and software engineering organizations) tend to be terrible is they prioritize their myopic desires over others' long term needs. Part of that is probably driven by software engineering's tendency to create systems that require constant active upkeep (due to its deficiencies), which leads software engineers to think it's right for everyone should be forced to perform constant active upkeep (or they "get what they deserve"). IMHO, the right thing to do is to carrying around some legacy baggage to prevent old documents from becoming unusable.

enriquto 4y ago
Maybe that's the point? Breaking backwards compatibility, even if for a noble intention towards a better future, results in practice in annihilation of the past. No good deed goes unpunished.
lucumo 4y ago
> software engineering's tendency to create systems that require constant active upkeep Nearly everything requires active upkeep, especially if it interacts with a changing environment. Software is no exception there.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Nearly everything requires active upkeep, especially if it interacts with a changing environment. Software is no exception there. In some cases, but software engineers tend to decide to make that environment change more, so even if your environment isn't otherwise changing, you still have deal with a bunch of change (e.g. you don't get to have software unless you can pay someone to regularly track framework updates, because some software engineers would rather not do the work to maintain backwards compatibility or support old versions).
xp84 4y ago
In a way, I think I'm comfortable with no one 200 years from now being able to read every tweet, because nobody bothered to keep an archive of all of Twitter and move it from one form of media to another. I'm sure there was a great deal of stuff of little value being spoken but not chiseled in stone in 100 BC as well. Only important stuff survives. If we have anything of great value to say, then let us put it intentionally in an archive for posterity. There is a limit, after all, in how much time future historians will have to read our stuff. Nobody can read all of Twitter today, nor in 200 or 2000 years.
eternityforest 4y ago
I still think that at least part of the issue is that many devs hate tech. They don't want to make tech more reliable or durable, they want to do their job, get paid, go home and work on toy side projects, and continue using paper and low tech stuff, even to the point of wood stoves and hand drills for anything they care about. Tech is a tool for exploring ideas to them more than a method of developing replacements for old fashioned goods, and I suspect they see the concept of trying to make it as durable as vellum as just shoehorning in the wrong solution when there's already vellum.

enriquto 4y ago

Maybe that's the point? Breaking backwards compatibility, even if for a noble intention towards a better future, results in practice in annihilation of the past. No good deed goes unpunished.

lucumo 4y ago

> software engineering's tendency to create systems that require constant active upkeep Nearly everything requires active upkeep, especially if it interacts with a changing environment. Software is no exception there.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Nearly everything requires active upkeep, especially if it interacts with a changing environment. Software is no exception there. In some cases, but software engineers tend to decide to make that environment change more, so even if your environment isn't otherwise changing, you still have deal with a bunch of change (e.g. you don't get to have software unless you can pay someone to regularly track framework updates, because some software engineers would rather not do the work to maintain backwards compatibility or support old versions).

xp84 4y ago

In a way, I think I'm comfortable with no one 200 years from now being able to read every tweet, because nobody bothered to keep an archive of all of Twitter and move it from one form of media to another. I'm sure there was a great deal of stuff of little value being spoken but not chiseled in stone in 100 BC as well. Only important stuff survives. If we have anything of great value to say, then let us put it intentionally in an archive for posterity. There is a limit, after all, in how much time future historians will have to read our stuff. Nobody can read all of Twitter today, nor in 200 or 2000 years.

eternityforest 4y ago

I still think that at least part of the issue is that many devs hate tech. They don't want to make tech more reliable or durable, they want to do their job, get paid, go home and work on toy side projects, and continue using paper and low tech stuff, even to the point of wood stoves and hand drills for anything they care about. Tech is a tool for exploring ideas to them more than a method of developing replacements for old fashioned goods, and I suspect they see the concept of trying to make it as durable as vellum as just shoehorning in the wrong solution when there's already vellum.