>
> On Fri, Oct 30, 1998 at 10:47:30PM -0500, Bob Munck wrote:
> > It never occurred to me that
> > the program would still be in use 32 years later, and it
> > wasn't, but it made it to 25 years.
>
> Nor should have it occured to you: running software that's
> that old is a sign of gross incompetence and negligence,
> and I'd instantly fire anyone in my organization who
> allowed it to happen.
???
For running program that meets critical needs, and does not need
overhaul? My gosh, all of us Unix/Loonix folks would be fired for running
cat and more! Unix is over 25 years old! !!!TOTALLY OBSOLETE!!! by your
standards!
Yet, like "Old Man River", it just keeps rollin along... Why?
Because it was designed to do a job well, and the new and modern solutions
are not that much better; and in many cases, are even worse.
> Folks, computers are no longer capital investments. They are
> consumables, with a short useful lifespan, beyond which they
> cease to save/make you money and start instead costing you money.
It just depends. There is no reason to upgrade an 8088 PC if it is
not used for anything more than a simple spreadsheet. (Note, I said
SIMPLE!) Not everyone is a power user, not everyone needs full Windows
2000 with a lan. Heck, not everyone needs a computer! I still remember
solving one manufacturing plant's problems with an ink-in-the-square wall
chart that gave the owner a far better understanding of what was going on
than any computer printout ever could.
> The same is true of software: look at the incredible sums
> of money being wasted band-aiding ancient code that should
> have been replaced years ago.
If you are modeling corporate decisions on it, you had better have at
least two staff members competent on updating it! Yes, a lot of computers
and software packages NEED to be replaced! But I rather suspect a lot of
it is just ego massaging.
> The problem is that bean-counters don't get it. They seem
> to think of hardware/software as "investments", which is about
> as stupid as thinking of a car as an "investment".
A car is an investment, and needs to be treated as such, or you will
just waste an incredible amount of money buying the latest car every year.
There are a lot of good econobox cars out there running ten to twenty
years later. In other countries, where the econometric ratios
between goods and services are different, there are thirty and fifty
year old cars in daily operation.
> Folks, I want to change your thinking about how you architect systems,
> whether they be hardware or software or both. The change is this:
>
> Design them to be thrown away.
Design them to interact. Design for stackability, so that the outputs
of one program can be used as the inputs of another. Design routines for
re-use. Like cat and more.
> Instead of creating monolithic systems -- which cost so
> much that you *can't* throw them away, and which you will
> no doubt have to continue to spend money on ad infinitum
> (see Y2K), design modular systems made up a of a *lot* of
> low-cost components. This allows you to replace any or
EXACTLY!
> all of the components whenever they become flaky, or
> outdated, or obsolete, or too expensive to support --
> and keep the system working without missing a beat.
> By continuously throwing pieces away and replacing them,
> the system never gets "old", per se, never has to be replaced
> en masse, and never winds up being a technological dinosaur.
Define "old". Software does not "age"; but some needs change. Look
at needs, not software/hardware.
> That means writing portable software; it means writing simple
> applications and not massive over-complex ones; it means using
> jellybean hardware whenever possible and avoiding anything
> that needs to be in a "computer room"; it means never tying
> yourself to a single vendor for anything; it means assuming
> that the hardware will be fast enough, because it probably will;
> and it means learning how to use somebody else's code (the
> freeware model) to get 90% of the job done with 10% of the work.
Yes.
But also, look beyond needs, look towards the facilitation model. If
you say you need X, you may well need Y and Z as well. If the software
can be written flexibly enough, then it is often the case that adding Z
will also add the capability for Y.
> Sure, there are problems that can't be solved this way -- not
> many, but there are some. Weather prediction still requires
> a supercomputer, for example. But the everyday problems --
> web servers and web applications and the like -- are very
> susceptible to this methodology.
> It astonishes me (and maybe it shouldn't; perhaps I'm not
> cynical enough yet) that the masses of short-sighted people
> fretting over Y2K problems haven't figured this out yet.
> Instead of flat-out replacing their ancient systems --
> which has a laundry list of benefits far beyond just
> addressing the Y2K issue -- they've elected to keep
> them running, even though it's costing them a fortune,
> and WILL cost them a fortune. "It's too expensive",
> some of them say.
>
> Oh, really?
>
> REALLY?
It may well be the case! Most corporations are running on thinner and
thinner margins.
> I don't think so. I think it might possibly be too
> expensive in the next quarter, or perhaps even in the
> next fiscal year, and I know that bean-counters are
> genetically incapable of seeing any further, but it's
> the cheaper and better approach for the long run.
If they could see further, they wouldn't be counting the beens, they
would be counting the coulds. We need more could counters.
> I now (momentarily) relinquish the soapbox. ;-)
Keep us thinking, Rich; keep us thinking!
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