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Why would it be permanently unavailable?
by samus 3y ago
Why would it be permanently unavailable?
- kragen 3y agothat's what always happens to downloads like 90% of my links from 8 years ago are 404 now
- samus 3y agoThe compiler from 8 years ago is very likely obsolete. If it was relevant, you'd have stored it somewhere safe or you'd have a support contract with Microsoft.
- kragen 3y agothe compiler from 8 years ago can still build code that works on the operating system from 8 years ago; the new compiler often cannot, even if it does exist it may well be obsolete in the sense that the new compiler is more convenient to use and produces more efficient code, but that's irrelevant software doesn't rot like the potatoes you forgot about in the fridge your argument is contingent on the presumption that people never do stupid things that cause them damage in the future. but if that were true, nobody would buy cigarettes, or for that matter microsoft windows, in the first place
- samus 3y agoSoftware indeed rots because it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Requirements change, bugs are discovered, support declines unless you give golden coins to someone. Infinite backwards compatibility is the exception rather than the normal. My point still stands: the compiler should have been kept around if it is required to keep something business-critical on an 8 year old machine running. Whether such old versions of compilers are still provided depends on the goodwill of Microsoft.
- kragen 3y agoit seems that somewhere in the thread you went from arguing against my position to arguing in favor of it
- samus 3y agoWe also shifted away from discussing what an end user needs (a recent OS, probably no compilers unless they develop software, and if they do, a recent one) to what one would need if stuck with a legacy hardware or software stack.