3 ms·
The way I interpret the decline of software is that part of the problem is because more software has been written with the mentality that it doesn't need to las
by 1dom 2y ago
The way I interpret the decline of software is that part of the problem is because more software has been written with the mentality that it doesn't need to last 30 years.
It's a self-perpetuating issue: people build stuff saying "it won't/can't last 30 years" for various reasons (money, time, skill, resources, expectations, company culture, business landscape etc). So then software doesn't last 30 years for those same various reasons.
The idea that we think systems did used to last longer is probably some survivor bias. However, software that has survived decades was probably created with a completely different set of methodologies, resources and incentives to modern software.
- BobbyTables2 2y agoPractically speaking, software should at least outlast one’s employment at a particular company. Writing bad code to just get past the next sprint or release is madness.
- naasking 2y agoWriting bad code for any reason is bad, the question is whether you can write good code to get the next release out. Or are you saying there's no such thing as good code that meets the next release' requirements?
- BobbyTables2 2y agoI think many people write sloppy code blindly thinking they won’t have to worry about it again.
- bigiain 2y agoThat's kinda the wo9ld business model of outsourced development teams...
- eastbound 2y agoLinux and Java has survived since 1995-1998, which is the dusk of times. We swap JS frameworks constantly, but when we’ll reach a good paradigm, we’ll stick with it. At one point, React might be the final framework, or rather, one of its descendants.
- renewedrebecca 2y agoOr just throw modern web app development with its insane ways of trying to work around the fast that JS is a broken paradigm and start over. Develop a good vm that can either be part of the browser or can be easily launched from it and get all of the browser/OS makers on the same page. We only have what we have because of a lack of real leadership.
- maccard 2y agoIf history had taught us anything in computing it’s that breaking backwards compatibility/rewriting it isn’t the panacea. See Perl, python, C++, longhorn, mosaic for example. My 4k, 120hz monitor with 32 bit color depth and 16 4.5GHz cpu cores attached to it still renders a terminal at 80 characters wide and chokes on cat bigfile.bin because we’re that married to not changing things.
- ajoseps 2y agowas there a large breaking backwards compatibility break for C++? I was there for some of the Python2/3 transition but I’ve always thought C++ was adamantly backwards compatible (minor exceptions being stuff like auto_ptr/unique_ptr, which I don’t think was as big as a break as Python’s)
- maccard 2y agoSorry - I meant that C++ as an “improved” C never managed to remove C’s foothold, it just fractured the ecosystem, When the c++11 abi break happened it was a big pain in the ass, but once MSVC decided in 2015 that they were going to stop breaking ABI I think it was the stability that c++ needed to fossilize… Spoken as a C++ fan.