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There is plenty of code I've written that's still out there doing useful things. I'm sure some not insignificant parts of Windows, Linux, tools, libraries, bro
by YZF 3y ago
There is plenty of code I've written that's still out there doing useful things.
I'm sure some not insignificant parts of Windows, Linux, tools, libraries, browsers etc. etc. are fairly old code that just keeps working .. perhaps with fixes and improvements.
Good code lasts a long time. Technical debt is something you are continuously paying "interest" on. Just like any debt, sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it's a bad thing.
- inconceivable 3y ago> perhaps with fixes and improvements. in my experience, if there's no will or budget for a rewrite, it gets virtualized, locked away behind a firewall/corporate network with a restricted set of users, and will basically run forever as long as the ISA and virtual storage is supported by emulation and the business process still exists and is able to support the infra/people involved. think of it like a zero coupon 100 year bond in technical debt issuance underwritten by the central bank (corporate hq). and highly liquid in the sense that a virtual image is easy to move around. the good part is it just gets faster and takes up less % resources as hardware improves, and forever-bugs are usually worked around and documented by the people pushing the buttons.
- chrismarlow9 3y agoI got a new laptop recently and I hadn't used Windows in probably a decade. It came with windows 11 and I saw so many old interfaces under the hood while exploring that it made me laugh a few times.