3 ms·
Holy smokes! There's a formal name for it!! I always privately called it a "Legacy Tail". It was a factor in the selection of a lightweight markup language to
by MilStdJunkie 3y ago
Holy smokes! There's a formal name for it!!
I always privately called it a "Legacy Tail". It was a factor in the selection of a lightweight markup language to support old-fashioned industry (aerospace), but I think it should be a factor in any software selection, to be honest.
Thanks for teaching me a thing!
- gofreddygo 3y agoI came across that term from Nassim Taleb's books and talks. Fascinating.
- p_l 3y agoCan you say something more about the markup language case?
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoShort version? With a pile of XML docs, Asciidoc's DocBook XML backend represented the "Legacy Tail" or Lenny Effect (Lenny Tail?) that gave us some insurance we'd have a stable format. We didn't see that in the Markdown ecosystem - we would have had to pick and choose Markdown variants and extensions, anyway - and the ReStructuredText ecosystem had no such tail and too many Python/Sphinx dependencies (corporate infosec had a real chip on its shoulder about Python). There was a lot of nights and weekends spent prototyping and wrestling with various old aero/milspec formats, but at the end of the day we came out with a publications format that could do more than the original could, on common tooling, where everyone who wanted to could contribute. I put it in the "win" column.