2 ms·

You are criticizing 10-20 year old decisions on the basis on what is available today (I am referring to your "currently" phrase)? Most non-startup companies ha

by RogerL 13y ago

You are criticizing 10-20 year old decisions on the basis on what is available today (I am referring to your "currently" phrase)? Most non-startup companies have a huge tech stack in place. That stack depends in many ways on the OS. If today you win/make a bid for a display in an airport, the first thing you should be asking is "how do I leverage my existing code base". The answer is almost never "by completely switching my OS". Especially in the scenerios being discussed in this sub-thread - lives at stake. I'm going to throw away my multidecade tested code for new code, and call that safer? No, never. Much (not all) of the code at the company I work at now is Windows based. I'd like to switch away, sort of, but for what? A nebulous "it's open" argument, vs converting man-centuries of work? It makes no sense. It has nothing to do with "balls", but a cost benefit equation, and a recognition that a 5-10 year old, battle tested OS is pretty darn safe compared to some kernel released in the last 3 months.

tluyben2 13y ago
I didn't say one should throw out decades of work; for a new company or and old company writing new software it makes sense picking technologies which run everywhere so you have a choice. There is no problem running Win if your admins are Win and most of your code is Win only; that makes a lot of sense. What makes no sense IMHO is picking Win blindly for new software and I find the same goes if you substitute Win with OS X or Linux or whatever. Also; when you write software, now or in the 80s, late 70s (before that it was a bit harder unless it was Cobol/Fortran or something), you separate the frontend from the backend. I wrote a ton of 'Windows only' (meaning it had to only run on Windows) software for companies in the 90s and 90+% of that C++ or Delphi code compiles fine on Win + Mac + Linux. I will still say it's about balls in choosing your tech if it's not mainstream aka simply blabbering out: Oracle + MS, but more so now; now there isn't much excuse for picking lock-in tech for the most part. Not sure what the 3-month old kernel is about; those exist in MS/Apple/... as well; who runs prod on that? So what does that even mean?

by RogerL 13y ago

tluyben2 13y ago

I didn't say one should throw out decades of work; for a new company or and old company writing new software it makes sense picking technologies which run everywhere so you have a choice. There is no problem running Win if your admins are Win and most of your code is Win only; that makes a lot of sense. What makes no sense IMHO is picking Win blindly for new software and I find the same goes if you substitute Win with OS X or Linux or whatever. Also; when you write software, now or in the 80s, late 70s (before that it was a bit harder unless it was Cobol/Fortran or something), you separate the frontend from the backend. I wrote a ton of 'Windows only' (meaning it had to only run on Windows) software for companies in the 90s and 90+% of that C++ or Delphi code compiles fine on Win + Mac + Linux. I will still say it's about balls in choosing your tech if it's not mainstream aka simply blabbering out: Oracle + MS, but more so now; now there isn't much excuse for picking lock-in tech for the most part. Not sure what the 3-month old kernel is about; those exist in MS/Apple/... as well; who runs prod on that? So what does that even mean?