32-bit to 64-bit - Obsolesence Pains Again?

robotsrule asks: "Having been in the computer industry a while I distinctly remember the pain of making the 16-bit to 32-bit transition, when Windows made the change to 32-bit support. Any developer who remember the joys of thunking and other kludges that were meant to help code conversions also remembers the arcane marathon debug sessions too. I have not been keeping up with the latest Microsoft Longhorn technical news, or the plans that the Linux community has for 64-bit platform support. Does anyone out there have a reliable prediction for the amount of system shock we are facing when either Longhorn or 64-bit Linux comes out? Will I lose all my favorite 32-bit development tools again as I watch the backward compatibility support dry up as the 64-bit O/S platforms are adopted? Or are the O/S manufacturers making happy noises about long-term support for existing development languages and tools?"

Comments

64 bit linux :-)?

[Crimsane]

My latest gentoo install is 64 bit, built from the ground up. works great for the most part. there was no lilo that i saw, but I use grub anyways. other then that i'm not missing anything. I've known people that've ran 64 bit in different distros for a couple months now, and they're all quite happy with it.

64-bit Linux

[reynaert]

when [...] 64-bit Linux comes out

64 bit Linux came out about a decade ago, when it was ported to the Alpha (and, unlike Windows NT for Alpha, it was a true 64 bit port).

Don't worry about it...

[Sheetrock]

There was a period of years between 32-bit hitting the market and 32-bit being taken seriously as a development target by the majority of developers.

True, a large part of that was due to MS-DOS being the platform of choice, but the speed with which you need to adapt to the 64-bit environment will be made up for by the relative ease of conversion. We're relatively insulated from the word size of the system, except for the size of 'int' in C, and we won't have to deal with memory managers or extenders -- that's all up to the OS.

Just keep in mind while you program to be flexible and avoid tying yourself to any OS particulars in an unnecessary way. It's a bump in the road, but nowhere near as bad as it used to be.

I expect to see 32-bit support in development tools for years yet. Microsoft's window of support seems to be five or more years for operating systems so you've got at least that much time.