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Ask Slashdot: A Development Environment Still Usable In 25 Years Time?
pev writes: I'm working on an embedded project that will need to be maintainable for the next 25 years. This raises the interesting question of how this can be best supported. The obvious solution seems to be to use a VM that has a portable disk image that can be moved to any emulators in the future (the build environment is currently based around Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / x86_64) but how do you predict what vendors / hardware will be available in 25 years? Is anyone currently supporting software of a similar age that can share lessons learned from experience? Where do you choose to draw the line between handling likely issues and making things overly complicated?
Because not only the code would need to be portable, but the build system too (makefiles). Also, in 25 years you don't want to re-qualify everything and risk introducing some new bugs because the new compiler doesn't behave like the old one. Too risky.
You are right. Good choice.
Linux is not multi-year support, it use to be all inclusive, exspecially with old equipment. I have equipment that is 15 years old, and cannot even use GCC3to recompile because it has ONLY 128MB of memory! GCC requires it to be all in memory are the same time, no pipes or swap! Add to it, cannot even try a system that was compiled after '05 because everyone turned on required MMX, even in their "386" or "486" versions. If your software uses the name 386, support the limits of the hardware on 386.
JAVA is gone too. We have equipment with JAVA interfaces take cannot be used with current JAVA, so much for write once and run everywhere! The vendors does not even offer a fix. Just toss-it, buy something else.
At work I use a language (RPG) that was developed in 60's to get insurance companies off of punch cards. IBM has basically guaranteed support for future version of their hardware. Over the years, we have seen grow new hardware, new OS, new... and the old code just keeps running. Even found third parties created runtimes on other OS, including Windows (baby/400) and Unix (Unibol).
That depends on the application. If he's making an industrial control system, then no, he probably will not be maintaining it organically. It will get built, qualified, and then expected to run for the life of the process. Think nuclear plant... what is more painful, re-qualification or running obsolete tools? Plants built in the 80s (power, sewer, etc) are still running DOS control systems with ancient serial PLCs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Better plan: pick something that is currently and widely used in aerospace and military applications and the world will preserve working systems for you.
I have personal experience with this. 15 years ago, just before I left an employer I had worked for for some time, I took a number of Digital Alpha workstations off their hands; they just gave them away after about five years of use and replaced them with newer workstations.
It turns out there is a thriving market for this hardware because aerospace and military outfits used it for their work and today they still have drawings and material they need to deal with in original form. They have migrated the original material to newer systems, but they also still maintain the equipment and software needed to get at the material in its original form.
They pay through the nose to get replacement parts and complete systems in working condition, so a salvage market has emerged and people prowl around trying to find caches of ancient workstations. Doubtless this will be ongoing for at least another ten years, and the prices will escalate accordingly.
So if you need to ensure there will be spare parts and systems at your disposal a quarter century from now, find out what Lockheed and Boeing are designing today's jets with and use that stuff. It's built well and people pay dearly for it when new, so it tends to be carefully preserved; it's hard to trash something that cost $20k, even if it is wildly obsolete.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!