3 ms·

In 20 years will that plugin work? I doubt it.

komali2 1y ago
This is why I didn't like Obsidian, half the plugins I tried didn't work despite them being in the top 20 downloaded ones. Meanwhile I'll use like 15 year old emacs plugins that haven't been updated in like 5 years and they'll work fine (I think org-diary or something along those lines was what I tried).
9dev 1y ago
You can’t even compile stuff from 20 years ago without some extensive archeological efforts. I doubt this is your largest problem by then.
- aidenn0 1y ago
  ??? I have dozens of projects from 20 years ago that I can compile today.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    With respect, I doubt it. Have you tried pulling out a 20 year old tarball and compiling it, without modification, on a modern distro?
    - aidenn0 1y ago
      I recently unearthed something that I thought was 20 years old when someone asked me about it. I checked and it was only 14 years old based on mtime (thought I suspect I started the project nearly 20 years ago). Another project I unearthed for a different reason was only 13 years old by mtime (again, it was started before that). I must concede that I haven't actually recently compiled and used anything that was untouched for 20 years. I should note that the first program I wrote that was actually used for a purpose (it calculates energy based on an internal stopwatch and then typing in values from a volt and ammeter, for a science project in 1992) still works in qb64 today. The second program I wrote that was actually used for a purpose assumes a parallel-port printer on DOS that uses a fairly old version of PCL, and was written in 16-bit C, so probably won't work today.
      - adastra22 1y ago
        A lot of these things can be made to work. That isn't being contested. But if you take a random piece of code of the internet from 20 years ago, it very likely won't compile out of the box on a modern system. For example, I just took the oldest version of openssl I could find with a quick search (2015, so only 10 years old), and it fails to compile on my Mac. It detects macOS/darwin, and then proceeds to compile for 32-bit Intel, which obviously doesn't work. OpenSSL has fallbacks for straight C implementation to support platforms that haven't been customized, but their build scripts assume that macOS = Intel. Ok sure, changing the whole freaking CPU architecture will bork a build script. So to prove a point I just downloaded v2.6.11 of the Linux kernel (released in 2005), unpacked (this time on Ubuntu 24.04 on real Intel), and did a `make menuconfig && make`. Of course I don't expect a 20 year old kernel to run on modern hardware, but could I compile it? No, I could not: modern GCC forces PIC by default, which parts of the Linux kernel do not support. I was able to fix that by editing the makefile to pass `-fno-pic` in CFLAGS. Then I get hit with another error due to "multiple definitions" of functions that are declared slightly differently. Turns out old GCC didn't warn about this, but modern GCC handles these declarations differently. This is after pages upon pages of warnings, btw, with only a few source files compiled so far. I gave up. This is what is meant by archeology required: for anything nontrivial you often have to build the environment in which the code was originally compiled in order to get it to compile again.
    - jibal 1y ago
      I have lots of stuff that's 20 years old that still builds ... C, Perl, shell scripts ...
      - 9dev 1y ago
        A shell script is something very different from a markdown editing app with plugins, file synchronisation, multi-platform support, and many more moving parts. And even a 20 year old shell script is probably going to fare pretty poorly. Do you remember what the most common processor was in 2005? A Pentium 4, or a Celeron maybe. That was when 64 bit operating systems just became a thing. I’d really like to see you getting a version of, say. OpenSSL from 2005 to compile on modern hardware…
        jibal 1y ago
        "A shell script is something very different" So what? Maybe read the thread that you're responding to. "And even a 20 year old shell script is probably going to fare pretty poorly." You can't just say "my sweeping assertion is probably right". I have shell scripts that are more than 20 years old that still run. And I have C89 programs that still compile and run. "I’d really like to see you getting a version of, say. OpenSSL from 2005 to compile on modern hardware…" This is a ridiculous disingenuous strawman. I can't get my FORTRAN II programs that I wrote in 1965 to run, but that has nothing to do with the original claim that I responded to, which was a sweeping generalization that a SINGLE counterexample refutes. Over and out.
kdmtctl 1y ago
Directus is not eternal either. They are OSS, but you can't support it yourself forever. For a such a long run this looks like a controversial choice for me.
nickthegreek 1y ago
your ai will straight up write you the plugin if it hadnt already done that seamlessly when you requested it render your file.
wiseowise 1y ago
In 20 years you might be dead.

This is why I didn't like Obsidian, half the plugins I tried didn't work despite them being in the top 20 downloaded ones. Meanwhile I'll use like 15 year old emacs plugins that haven't been updated in like 5 years and they'll work fine (I think org-diary or something along those lines was what I tried).

9dev 1y ago

You can’t even compile stuff from 20 years ago without some extensive archeological efforts. I doubt this is your largest problem by then.

aidenn0 1y ago
??? I have dozens of projects from 20 years ago that I can compile today.
- adastra22 1y ago
  With respect, I doubt it. Have you tried pulling out a 20 year old tarball and compiling it, without modification, on a modern distro?
  - aidenn0 1y ago
    I recently unearthed something that I thought was 20 years old when someone asked me about it. I checked and it was only 14 years old based on mtime (thought I suspect I started the project nearly 20 years ago). Another project I unearthed for a different reason was only 13 years old by mtime (again, it was started before that). I must concede that I haven't actually recently compiled and used anything that was untouched for 20 years. I should note that the first program I wrote that was actually used for a purpose (it calculates energy based on an internal stopwatch and then typing in values from a volt and ammeter, for a science project in 1992) still works in qb64 today. The second program I wrote that was actually used for a purpose assumes a parallel-port printer on DOS that uses a fairly old version of PCL, and was written in 16-bit C, so probably won't work today.
    - adastra22 1y ago
      A lot of these things can be made to work. That isn't being contested. But if you take a random piece of code of the internet from 20 years ago, it very likely won't compile out of the box on a modern system. For example, I just took the oldest version of openssl I could find with a quick search (2015, so only 10 years old), and it fails to compile on my Mac. It detects macOS/darwin, and then proceeds to compile for 32-bit Intel, which obviously doesn't work. OpenSSL has fallbacks for straight C implementation to support platforms that haven't been customized, but their build scripts assume that macOS = Intel. Ok sure, changing the whole freaking CPU architecture will bork a build script. So to prove a point I just downloaded v2.6.11 of the Linux kernel (released in 2005), unpacked (this time on Ubuntu 24.04 on real Intel), and did a `make menuconfig && make`. Of course I don't expect a 20 year old kernel to run on modern hardware, but could I compile it? No, I could not: modern GCC forces PIC by default, which parts of the Linux kernel do not support. I was able to fix that by editing the makefile to pass `-fno-pic` in CFLAGS. Then I get hit with another error due to "multiple definitions" of functions that are declared slightly differently. Turns out old GCC didn't warn about this, but modern GCC handles these declarations differently. This is after pages upon pages of warnings, btw, with only a few source files compiled so far. I gave up. This is what is meant by archeology required: for anything nontrivial you often have to build the environment in which the code was originally compiled in order to get it to compile again.
  - jibal 1y ago
    I have lots of stuff that's 20 years old that still builds ... C, Perl, shell scripts ...
    - 9dev 1y ago
      A shell script is something very different from a markdown editing app with plugins, file synchronisation, multi-platform support, and many more moving parts. And even a 20 year old shell script is probably going to fare pretty poorly. Do you remember what the most common processor was in 2005? A Pentium 4, or a Celeron maybe. That was when 64 bit operating systems just became a thing. I’d really like to see you getting a version of, say. OpenSSL from 2005 to compile on modern hardware…
      - jibal 1y ago
        "A shell script is something very different" So what? Maybe read the thread that you're responding to. "And even a 20 year old shell script is probably going to fare pretty poorly." You can't just say "my sweeping assertion is probably right". I have shell scripts that are more than 20 years old that still run. And I have C89 programs that still compile and run. "I’d really like to see you getting a version of, say. OpenSSL from 2005 to compile on modern hardware…" This is a ridiculous disingenuous strawman. I can't get my FORTRAN II programs that I wrote in 1965 to run, but that has nothing to do with the original claim that I responded to, which was a sweeping generalization that a SINGLE counterexample refutes. Over and out.

kdmtctl 1y ago

Directus is not eternal either. They are OSS, but you can't support it yourself forever. For a such a long run this looks like a controversial choice for me.

nickthegreek 1y ago

your ai will straight up write you the plugin if it hadnt already done that seamlessly when you requested it render your file.

wiseowise 1y ago

In 20 years you might be dead.