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Oldest Supported Software?
Dave Santek writes "In development since the early 1970s, the McIDAS [Man computer Interactive Data Access System] software celebrated its 30th anniversary in October 2003. McIDAS is used to integrate and visualize weather information. The software was originally run on a Datacraft /5 and has gone through 4 major hardware configuration changes over the last 30 years. It is a supported software package that remains in use at more than 100 locations worldwide. A history of the first 25 years (pdf) is available. A freeware version of the software is also available."
...and still unsurpassed.
I'm not surprised they're failing if they're at least 1025 years old!!
Seriously, though, this is the kind of situation that really scares me. Rarely is such a problem solved with money alone -- a project of this scale and importance needs to be supported by the best.
The IT industry is characterised by too many enthusiasts and too few professionals.
The software may not have changed much, but the support sure has. If you are a corporation, and you make an operating system, that's the OS, what's needed for the computer to run applications, there is no excuse for dropping support for it. Ever.
Yes, I know of places where Windows 3.1 is still used (legacy database anyone?), and problems still arise. Even in 2003, I have troubleshot Windows 98, 95 and 3.1. And I'm not trying to be all high and mighty about Open Source, RedHat is putting their customers through the same bullshit.
To make the all too common analogy, if you have a car, and 5 years from now it breaks down, you bring it to a mechanic, he says "sorry, this model isn't supported anymore, time to upgrade!", what the hell do you say to that? The problem of software companies to stop supporting their products is ridiculous. If you're going to make something, do it right, don't pussyfoot around making a good product, and at least have the balls to admit to your mistake and fix it when the shit jumps off. Screw you all software engineers. Where the hell is my abacus?
That's a terrible analogy. If your car breaks down five years after you bought it, and you return it to the dealer, do you know what he's going to say? "You only have a five-year warranty on parts and labor. Go find a mechanic." The mechanic is much more akin to service-oriented companies like Progeny who are offering commercial support for products that have been EOLed.
The original K&R C didn't have a void type.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
I went to an interesting conference by a guy named Phillipe Krouchten from Rational (or should I say IBM Rational now?) who was heading their Vancouver division studying software engineering stuff. From my understanding he is the father of the RUP (Rational Unified Process).
Canada basicly had the same problem as the US with an aging air traffic control system and basicly at the same time they started doing mostly the same thing. And a few years later they discovered that they where not advancing much, so they called in that guy who at the time worked as a consultant and he is supposed to have basicly turned aroudn the whole project and completed it..
Anyways, the interesing point of his conference was on iterative VS waterfall processes. At first everyone though that the "waterfall" approach was right. First write a good specification, then code, then test, then release.. But it was discovered that it didnt work. So Kruchten basicly transformed the project to use iterative techniques were they would go over 3 months of specify, code, test, and they do it again until the project was completed...
The part that I dont understand was... Why arent americans buying the Canadian system?