3 ms·

because 51 years ago was the age of speaking to room sized computers with typewriters and punchcards. Nothing about computing is anywhere close to settled enou

because 51 years ago was the age of speaking to room sized computers with typewriters and punchcards. Nothing about computing is anywhere close to settled enough for anyone to actually think about it on century-long time scales. Maybe we're at a point where we can talk about appliance style computers-single task, very limited I/O lasting that long. It'd be nice, don't get me wrong, but OpenBSD should probably last a century before we start asking if we could let it run for another century.

Aerbil313 3y ago
This. The entire field of software is nowhere near mature or settled. My gut says that, in terms of software technology, the society today has progressed only %20 of the road and utilized the techology only that amount, compared to what it could be. Very few software I use I can call mature (i.e there's no meaningful room of improvement), they can be improved much more. The collective amount of work that has been put in to develop software by humanity so far not being enough means that the potential of the field is so great, maybe uncomparable to any other (e.g. think about carpentry).
nullifidian 3y ago
>is anywhere close to settled enough Some things are pretty well settled. 40 year old Unix software (K&R C,IPC/network sockets) would work on a modern linux with trivial or zero changes, and it doesn't look like it's gonna change soon. That was the age of not room sized, but half a fridge sized "minicomputers". Old software that people rely on doesn't necessarily need new features or improved capabilities that new standards and interfaces provide. Security, the constant change of the environment(network, protocols), and hardware and software changing in tandem are the only reasons people have to migrate or rewrite some pieces of well established software. Some of these changes in the environment feel as if these changes are for the changes' sake, to create programmer jobs.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > 40 year old Unix software (K&R C,IPC/network sockets) would work on a modern linux with trivial or zero changes, and it doesn't look like it's gonna change soon. Is that true? Will K&R C (that is, C with old-style function declarations, not prototypes) compile on a modern compiler? I thought that gcc, for instance, no longer supported that declaration style. (And if you just have to add a flag to the makefile, I will agree that it's a trivial change.) On the sockets, I agree with you.
  - nullifidian 3y ago
    >I thought that gcc, for instance, no longer supported that declaration style. It's g++ that doesn't support this, gcc should.
throw0101a 3y ago
> because 51 years ago was the age of speaking to room sized computers with typewriters and punchcards. Code written in COBOL on mainframes 51 years ago still runs today.

Aerbil313 3y ago

This. The entire field of software is nowhere near mature or settled. My gut says that, in terms of software technology, the society today has progressed only %20 of the road and utilized the techology only that amount, compared to what it could be. Very few software I use I can call mature (i.e there's no meaningful room of improvement), they can be improved much more. The collective amount of work that has been put in to develop software by humanity so far not being enough means that the potential of the field is so great, maybe uncomparable to any other (e.g. think about carpentry).

nullifidian 3y ago

>is anywhere close to settled enough Some things are pretty well settled. 40 year old Unix software (K&R C,IPC/network sockets) would work on a modern linux with trivial or zero changes, and it doesn't look like it's gonna change soon. That was the age of not room sized, but half a fridge sized "minicomputers". Old software that people rely on doesn't necessarily need new features or improved capabilities that new standards and interfaces provide. Security, the constant change of the environment(network, protocols), and hardware and software changing in tandem are the only reasons people have to migrate or rewrite some pieces of well established software. Some of these changes in the environment feel as if these changes are for the changes' sake, to create programmer jobs.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
> 40 year old Unix software (K&R C,IPC/network sockets) would work on a modern linux with trivial or zero changes, and it doesn't look like it's gonna change soon. Is that true? Will K&R C (that is, C with old-style function declarations, not prototypes) compile on a modern compiler? I thought that gcc, for instance, no longer supported that declaration style. (And if you just have to add a flag to the makefile, I will agree that it's a trivial change.) On the sockets, I agree with you.
- nullifidian 3y ago
  >I thought that gcc, for instance, no longer supported that declaration style. It's g++ that doesn't support this, gcc should.

throw0101a 3y ago

> because 51 years ago was the age of speaking to room sized computers with typewriters and punchcards. Code written in COBOL on mainframes 51 years ago still runs today.