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Ask HN: What's the oldest software you still use today?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the oldest software you still use today?

#42

Post by stcredzero »

I_complete_me wrote: post #39

Warning: nerd at work. The question may be ambiguous. To highlight: compare "what's the oldest software you still use today" to "what's the oldest software you use today". The first one refers to software you have been using over a longish(?) period and the second to software that may be old that you are using even though you may have only begun using it. I hope my pedantry (pedanticism?) isn't too inane...

I hope my pedantry (pedanticism?) isn't too inane...

Or, you surreptitiously hope it's much too inane, much as people do with puns. What should we call those who secretly love pedantry? "Pedantophiles?" Oh what a difference one syllable makes!

Re: Ask HN: What's the oldest software you still use today?

#43

Post by stcredzero »

gumby wrote: post #23
nickelcitymario wrote: post #10

Deoxyribonucleic acid

It's a shame the source has been lost so everybody has to modify the object code in situ. An utter revision control disaster!

We've already started the reversing effort:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHIocNOHd7A

Re: Ask HN: What's the oldest software you still use today?

#44

Post by yesenadam »

Foober223 wrote: post #30

GNU grep. If you cheat and count years since the original grep it's pretty old.

Not sure if that's cheating - most of the suggestions on this page go from the original version of something. A kind of 'Ship of Theseus' problem - there's no natural or obvious definition of 'what counts as still the same thing' (except 'all parts exactly the same', I guess).

Wikipedia says grep is from 1974.

Cat, chmod, chown, comp, cp, date, df, du, ed, find, ln, ls, mailx, mkdir, mv, nm, od, pr, rm, rmdir, sort, strip, tty, unlink, wc, who, and write are from Version 1 Unix - Nov 1971!

The page for ed says: "It was one of the first parts of the Unix operating system that was developed, in August 1969."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unix_commands

Re: Ask HN: What's the oldest software you still use today?

#45

Post by beatgammit »

stcredzero wrote: post #42
I_complete_me wrote: post #39

Warning: nerd at work. The question may be ambiguous. To highlight: compare "what's the oldest software you still use today" to "what's the oldest software you use today". The first one refers to software you have been using over a longish(?) period and the second to software that may be old that you are using even though you may have only begun using it. I hope my pedantry (pedanticism?) isn't too inane...

I hope my pedantry (pedanticism?) isn't too inane... Or, you surreptitiously hope it's much too inane, much as people do with puns. What should we call those who secretly love pedantry? "Pedantophiles?" Oh what a difference one syllable makes!

I think that would be someone who secretly loves pedants, which isn't quite the same thing as secretly loving pedantry.

Am I doing this right?

Re: Ask HN: What's the oldest software you still use today?

#50

Post by stcredzero »

beatgammit wrote: post #45
stcredzero wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope my pedantry (pedanticism?) isn't too inane... Or, you surreptitiously hope it's much too inane, much as people do with puns. What should we call those who secretly love pedantry? "Pedantophiles?" Oh what a difference one syllable makes!

I think that would be someone who secretly loves pedants, which isn't quite the same thing as secretly loving pedantry. Am I doing this right?

I don't know. I got downvoted, so apparently I'm doing it right!
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