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Searching for the Oldest Running Application
A columnist from InternetWeek has completed a search for the oldest running commercial software application. His results are interesting (note that he's mostly skipping over mainframe applications, just looking at PC-based apps).
note that he's mostly skipping over mainframe applications, just looking at PC-based apps
That makes a biiig difference. I'm contracted out to a bank that has a mainframe system thats been in operation for around 30 years, beating the program her found.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Sounds like some of these places just have plain lazy IS staff. I mean, take that office still using an ancient form of Lotus notes. The excuse, "cause the mainframe can't handle uploads in any other format" or some such nonsense. You don't place the burden of old mainframe technology on the users front end.
Any large company thats been around a while is going to have a legacy system here or there, its up to the IS staff to interface the old with the new.
Idealy, when programmers write code or engineers design systems, they do it with the ages in mind.
Knowingly or unknowingly, you have said something really insightful there. I had an "aha" moment after reading your comment. Consider a Microsoft programmer working on Windows 2003. He knows that Microsoft is already working on the new improved Windows 2005, and the developer on Windows 2005 knows that plans are already under way for Windows 2007.
Now where is the motivation to build reliability and security into the system when you know the code you are writing will not have a usage of more than two years (or so Microsoft hopes, since ideally they would like everyone to upgrade to the version du juor instantly).
No wonder the products that come out seem like they were written in a half baked manner.
The cost of upgrading is also a major factor. I work with financial institutes, many which use mainframes and some with cobol programmers, etc. All the backend systems still work, work in a reliable time, and have yet to really break. Why spend the tens of millions of dollars and the years to upgrade to a new high-end DB, and reprogram an entire backend to a system which isn't broke in the firstplace?? And, if you decide to change, how secure are you to copy over the financies for hundreds of thousands of people and ensure that you aren't creating lawsuits (missing money) or pissing off the SEC (bad reports due to corrupt data)?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
This though fits right into our society's view on everything being disposable.
Remember, only in the Western world is software/hardware cheap when measured against the cost of living.
In India, for example, a cheap PC would cost more than what most people earn in a month. I bet there would be many schools and homes with old PCs and software simply because it costs too much to upgrade.
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As long as you keep up with regular maintence and run the same programs, there is really no need to upgrade. If a program ran good and stable 20 years, excluding any hardware problems, it should run the same on the same old machine. Why waste money just to get a fancier, more appealing interface and countless, annoying, useless options that will never be touched.
Plus they just don't make them like they used to. I have seen many modern pentium based system come and go (and get chucked in the dumpster), while the 286, 386, and 486 systems still go strong.
One reader sent me screenshots to prove that his Windows NT v4 server is still up and running of 1,079 days with nary a reboot, and being used to serve up IP addresses for about 3,500 client workstations.
Just the far end of the bell curve? A quick photoshop job on the screenshots? Or... maybe Windows is of some use as a server OS after all?
Consider a Microsoft programmer working on Windows 2003. He knows that Microsoft is already working on the new improved Windows 2005, and the developer on Windows 2005 knows that plans are already under way for Windows 2007.
Do you really think they throw it away each time? Unless you're working on something that's pure marketing fluff, code written for one release has a very good chance of being around in the future.
It's a law of nature that code always lives longer than you expect - the cost of throwing things away and rewriting from scratch is almost always worse than the downside of massaging it to deal with the next requirement. It's the mark of good software that it's ameanable to that - unless you're writing a throw-away bit of toy code for yourself, you should assume that anything you check in is probably going to be around in some form for years...
Happened to me recently when doing consultancy work for a company I used to work for 10 years ago. They still have modules which are pretty much unchanged since I wrote them way back when as a new grad, minus the inevitable bug fixes and new features.
Nae bother
Witness UNIX and it's clones. MS would have you believe that running an OS or using programing tools from 1995 is wrong but I somehow don't think everyone around here would agree.
TW
Speaking of "oldest" tech things...it would be interesting to find out what the oldest telephone number in continuous use in the US is or the oldest email address.
It still works, and its spreadsheet easily uses relative cell references. That nifty little feature seems to have gotten lost in MS's spreadsheets between then and now. Today, one of my cow orkers needed to do something in a spreadsheet ... ``relative references!'' I told him. Half an hour later, none of us could figure out how to do it in Excel.
Sometimes, the old stuff is good enough to warrent putting up with its limitations. In this case, maybe not. But MS's spreadsheets have gone way downhill since the early '80's.
See what I've been reading.
Novell has not moved away from IPX. It has been and still will be supported in future versions. I'm teaching 6.0 and it still uses IPX/SPX for several functions. They need an admin with a clue!
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I know a couple of medical transciptionists, and WP5.1 is king. Why? Because when you're typing 120 WPM you can't afford to reach for the mouse. Because they all have these medical dictionary modules that are written for WP5.1. And because when your word processor is your job, you really don't give a rat's ass if it has a GUI or not.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Wait till the drive releases it's magic smoke, or wait until the CPU calls it quits. While it's been reliable, it'll eventually fry itself out...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Also. I thought that perl is a scripting language because it is interpreted and C++ is a programming language because it is compiled? The size of the script or program is not going to change it into one or the other. A three line compiled program is still a program and a 3,000 line interpreted script is still a script.
I still play Nuclear War (1989) and I think Project Space Station (1987) was one of the best strategy games ever--a precursor of RTS. But I am addicted to multi-tasking and I am quite fond of the research efficiency gains you point out.
Most people don't need to upgrade and become a slave to hype. I'm running everything off a 800 MHz system (4 years) and I intend to squeeze the last drop of energy out of it(8 years or more). I'm not on a more modern system or OS because Mr. Bill Gates slammed the door on my Dragon Dictate system... a 1997 discrete speech program that doesn't get along with XP.
Why would people upgrade these days? High quality RAM, a decent video card and a decent hard drive will handle everything for people that don't give a flying fsck about games and are mature enough to just stay put. I'll probably get a flat panel monitor within the next couple years but that fits with one of my subobjectives--don't get a PC that consumes so much power that it burns my house down.
Laws are for people with no friends.
May I suggest Pioneer 10's stabilizer program.