When I was a newbie, I worked for a company that kept two RCA Spectra 70 systems around way past their useful life because the systems hosted two applications: Billing and Payroll. The programs were written in COBOL. But it wasn't just COBOL or Spectra 70s. It was the disk drives, and the printers. This company made several deals with the devil to keep these machines going. It just could not bring itself to cutting the cord. The vendor (Sperry) FEs would spend hours each week scouring the nation for spare parts. We had printer ribbons up the kazoo stockpiled because they were generally unavailable. Oh yes, they kept the programmers around too (sweet job, I guess). And they postponed the demolition of the old corporate headquarters to avoid having to move the Spectras.
So I guess times are changing, but why do they have to change? If you have an application running on a computer configuration today and that running application is producing a meaningful product or service for your company, why do you need to switch? When did the "upgrade or lose support" gene become part of our collective DNA? Support is an issue for immature products. When was the last time you actually got support from M$ that was of any value? Probably shortly after you upgraded (or updated) your system and the recent change was not yet ready for distro. The real problem here is not M$ but Intel. M$ stuff will only work as long as Intel (or AMD, I suppose) produces a product that will bootstrap the way it does today. Yes, one minor circuit change and everything, including Linux, will fail. And that failure will be a lot harder to overcome than if M$ changed one line of code. If you are looking for a new "language," first pick a hardware architecture that will live forever. Then spend an afternoon learning assembler language (ok maybe two or three afternoons). That is the "language" that will always be available for whatever hardware you've chosen. Assembler offers almost a complete lack of contrived constructs, syntax, variable naming conventions, etc., etc. Since the hardware only works one way at any given instant, there is no need for all that drivel. Put the bits in the right order and let 'er rip! B+ HALinNY _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
