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Dan Bricklin on Software That Lasts 200 Years
Lansdowne writes "Dan Bricklin, author of VisiCalc, has written a great new essay identifying a need for software that needs to last for decades or even centuries without replacement. Neither prepackaged nor custom-written software is fully able to meet the need, and he identifies how attributes of open source might help to produce long-lasting 'Societal Infrastructure Software'."
It seems like most open source has been less than 1.0 for at least 200 years. But all for a quality product right? Oh you found a bug? Well thats because its pre-1.0!
I disagree. It's got nothing to do with the software but the data.
If the data format is clearly documentented, then it doesn't matter whether the application that generated it is open or closed.
True, you could argue that since the code is open the data format is also documented, but personally I'd find it easier if it was written in a properly structured document.
Otherwise you'd have to resort to learning and then plouging through an application written in some 200 year old programming language (by someone who possibly hacked it up with a hangover at the time) to try and understand what they were doing and why.
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Well Dan Bricklin does point out that software of today can run on different hardware and having software tied to specific hardware is a bad idea.
He says that the system should stay fundamentaly the same and components can be replaced and upgraded, not having everything replaced completely every five years.
He is not just talking about one specific program that doesn't change, but rather open standards and techniques that mean data that is stored today, will be accessible in 200 years time.
Constant standards are what is needed to make software last that long.
Language standards don't even last 200 years, how do we expect something as new as software standards to be more uniform than language standards? Language has been around for thousands of years and we still can't agree on that.
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I think you do not understand completely the point of the article...
.doc in windows 2000 looked like
The point is that, given the fact that there is a vast amount of information in computer files, you must be aware that if you can't retreive that information in the future, it will be lost.
You are right, most of the software gets updated. But it is the interface that understands the format the thing that must last for much more time than a couple of software-updates-cycles
This is exactly another reason to consider OS standards instead of closed-source formats, as MS in 100 years (if it does still exist) will have forgotten how
Standards are what must be designed to last for decades, not the software that conforms to the standards. Things like XML, RDF and POSIX will be supported for decades, if not centuries. Who cares if it is Linux running your POSIX apps, or FreeBSD, or HURD? I don't think it matters if software uses libxml2 to parse your XML data, or some yet-unconceived API--as long as it understands XML!
If it is stability and reliable infrastructure that is desired, it is standards that must remain constant and software that must evolve to make the standards work with new technology.
The point that the author makes here is really that without electricity we will lose great parts of recent history.
When I was at secondary school, in Britain during the 1980s, we participated in a UK-wide project to create a modern version of the "Domesday Book", the 11th-century record of people and property.
The project we worked on was recorded onto a (state-of-the-art) laserdisc so it would "last through the generations".
Last year I read an article saying that dedicated enthusiasts were desperately trying to assemble a working laserdisc system, in order to archive all the data collected just 20 years earlier.
Moral: it's not just electricity we need to worry about - media and the equipment necessary to access specific media is vital, too.
This is where the serious fun begins.
I think 200 years isn't long enough. They just don't make software like they used to. For example, last time I visited Atlantis, and used the Amulet of Chr'Thalis to activate the ancient computers laying dormant beneath the Temple of the Dawn, they just started working perfectly. True, they only speak Ancient Atlantean, but the software's just fine. And we're talking about systems that haven't been maintained since the Temple Wardens vanished sometime during the Fourth Age; that's several hundred years at least since their last debugging. Of course, some of the hardware's a bit run-down (in the case of some the Temple traps that's a good thing), and the Orb of Kings is still inactive, but the Temple software works perfectly.