1986 Totalizer display system betweem Kentucky Utilities and Tenn. Valley Auth. ran for 15 years with no failures or reboots on an Imsai Intel 8080. Not complex but included an error correcting protocol.
Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
21–30 of 37 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#222011-2012 I wrote an inventory management system.
It's a "single page app". Using jQuery. Python backend.
I truly hope nobody else ever has to work on it (now there are real single page libraries) but it still works and has been going like a charm over a decade and the users like it.
Every year I think maybe I'll redo it using Vue or something but never do.
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#23a simple application that records the physical position of document folders for a law firm. it backups via a cronjob that sends an email with a zipped copy of the sqlite db, and will be 10 y.o. in a couple of years.
it has literally 1 user which finds it perfect and don't want it changed in any way, and I actually think it's mission critical at this point.
I think I have a phone call to make next week...
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#24Reason is obviously the language.
Hard to beat php and c++ when it comes to that. Write once, run anytime for decades
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#25In 2002, I wrote a CMS in Python and later Zope 2, in a tiny company with 3 SWEs. At a given point, it was used for internal sites in 20 banks, a couple of 5k+ employees companies and a division of Deutsche Bank that managed investment funds. I left that company more than 10 years ago, and Zope 2 itself has reached end of life years ago, yet that initial codebase has seen quite a few migration but it is still alive. I connected again with the CEO of that tiny company, which has grown a bit but it was always a lifetime gig on (his) purpose and not a growth or die startup.
I think they are finally going to put it to grave, after a long discussion / brainstorming about AI and the impact on their main product (now no longer a CMS, but a low-code platform for SMEs).
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#26There's some code I wrote 30 years ago that's still running inside a text-based, multiplayer, internet game (LPMUD). I wouldn't say it's useful, per se, but it'll probably continue to run for at least several more years.
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#27I suspect it’s preceded by the comment
# quick and dirty hack, please, please, please replace this before it goes to production
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#28Well, 50 years ago when I started assaying caustic soda cargoes, bureaus like ours were not yet using computers for this in the chem lab.
The bench technique was not as repeatable as I needed to begin with, but the easy calculations were identical to how it had been done using slide rules, only electronic calculators were the modern replacement.
The fourth decimal place really maks a big difference when you've got thousands of tonnes.
There was one caustic plant where they had a very specialized lab apparatus that allowed better precision, but we were not going to be able to adopt that approach worldwide in our independent labs.
I figured out a way to easily reproduce the results using ordinary apparatus, but the calculations were far too hairy for most bench operators to adapt to. And that was with calculators, nobody would have ever done this with slide rules.
So I wrote a little Basic program on the Commodore VIC20 that we had in the office just to experiment with. With 20/20 hindsight I was the first and only programmer at this particular multinational at the time.
Then it was a breeze to just assay the easy way on the bench, type in the readings to the VIC20 and out came the result.
Ended up leaving the company to build a lab in another port before this could be deployed elsewhere, did configure the code for a few different platform Basics before the IBM PC became so common, and used it myself ever since whenever I need to break out the big guns to settle a dispute or something.
One of the reasons I think it lasted so long for me is because it solved a problem that existed many decades before I came along with a systems approach that included code for the first time in history.
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#29I worked on a product about 25 or so years ago that is still sold, maintained and in active use - there will be bits of my code in there somewhere.
Re: Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?
#30Somewhere around 1990, I wrote a system in Turbo Pascal to monitor and record the results from a PLC used to calibrate large water meters for the City of Chicago. I had a cooperative multi-tasking system that I used to keep everything updating a GUI while doing all the other work.
Somewhere around 2010, they contacted me because they had a problem with it when they replaced the computer with a newer system. It turned out they had the parallel input cards swapped, and it was put back in service. As far as I know it's still in service.
It's quite possible that thing will outlive me. Why? Because it's tied to hardware that works and does economically important work.