Emulation or the real thing?

From: Sam Ismail <dastar_at_ncal.verio.com>
Date: Wed Oct 21 14:14:55 1998

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998, John Foust wrote:

> This reminds me of a claim I hear in Y2K discussions, but can hardly
> believe: that businesses are running the same *executables* since
> the 1950s/60s/70s, and that they don't have the source code to fix it.
>
> Sure, they might not have the source to the OS, but their own apps?
> And that there's been no other reason to change or replace the
> programs in all these years, and Y2K is the only reason they need to do it?

Yes! John, this stuff happens all the time. 40 years is a LONG time.
Plenty of stuff can get lost in 40 years.

Lots of times, companies do not take appropriate measures to archive their
source code. Its just one of those things that eventually gets lost to
time. In the 5 years that I've been working for my current employer, I've
probably "lost" the source to at least one program we use on a daily basis
(or at least did before my office was downsized out of existence).

Also, if it ain't broke, do go fricking with the damn thing. I've got
programs in use to this day that I haven't touched since I originally
coded them perhaps 5 years ago. There's no need to. It does a task that
has not changed scope in that time.

So, believe it or not my naive young man, people are dumb enough to lose
the source code.

Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Wed Oct 21 1998 - 14:14:55 BST

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