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Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

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Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#61

Post by geophile »

geophile wrote: post #59

I was at a company from 2000-2003, and wrote a lot of its software. That company is still around, and they also licensed their software to a spinoff. I was brought in for some consulting to the spinoff and was equal parts pleased and horrified to see that some of my software was still in use and pretty much untouched. Horrified because back in 2002 I was already agitating that it was time for a rewrite for one part o…

Almost forgot: I left in 2003 to join a startup which was then acquired by a very large company. Not only is that software still around, but the changes I was agitating for in 2009, when I left, have been implemented! I'm much happier about this one.

Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#62

Post by krapp »

Apparently people are (or at least were) using this perceptual hasher[0] I wrote in PHP a few years ago. I'm embarassed by it because I know I will never update it, and it's probably badly written. Luckily there are lots of forks.

I also have a lot of old javascript hacks that are running on various Adobe Business Catalyst sites for people. Sometimes I get reacquainted with code I wrote months ago and forgot about entirely. I have actually asked myself "who wrote this" only to realize... it was me.

[0]https://github.com/kennethrapp/phasher

Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#63

Post by viraptor »

Daneel_ wrote: post #60
le-mark wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is, that vintage of lotus notes was actually tolerable, compared to what came later.

I feel like I have stockholm syndrome after using Notes from several years. I hated notes, but I really miss the 'Copy to New' function from creating new emails from already sent items. Anyone know of a client that supports this other than Notes? (sorry for the hijack)

I just use "forward" for that in outlook/gmail and delete the first few lines that get injected. Is that what you mean?

Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#64

Post by nickpsecurity »

A website demo using XML and XForms before they were standardized scripted into HTML that's still running at a site per an old friend. Well, at least a few years ago. It was one of about 30 examples in a set. What they couldn't figure out is my site was blank on every browser despite everything organized by a INDEX.HTML file they loaded. The trick: one of the letters in either the file's name or name a preprocessor gives it isn't the English letter it appears to be. ;)

And apparently they didn't delete the shit because (a) they're lazy and (b) people just skip over it assuming it's a browser error instead of typing "INDEX" in their address bar. So, they left it in there as a successful example in a demo set. I got a glowing recommendation, too, since I showed the original ("bleeding-edge, web tech!") to the person in charge who also thought the demo glitched. Funny all around lol.

Note: This was a bullshit project rather than paid or important work. Not what I'd do if someone paid me for quality work haha.

Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#66

Post by nickpsecurity »

haberman wrote: post #36

MP3 importing code for the Audacity audio editor. I wrote this in 2002. https://github.com/audacity/audacity/blob/master/src/import/... Amusingly, a TODO I put is still there: /* TODO: get rid of this by adding fixed-point support to SampleFormat. * For now, we allocate temporary float buffers to convert the fixed * point samples into something we can feed to the WaveTrack. Allocating * big blocks of data like this i…

A great example of why we tell people to forget using a substandard approach and language for "quick and dirty code that will probably get thrown away." A lot of long-lasting code started out exactly that way. ;)

Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#67

Post by sdrothrock »

I wrote an in-MUD game for a Wheel of Time-themed MUD around 2005; I stopped in last year to see how things were going and was pleasantly surprised to see that not only were my game and helpfile still in the MUD, but that there was an ongoing game as I logged in. Satisfying to know that something I made over ten years ago is still being enjoyed.

Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#68

Post by nickpsecurity »

cottonseed wrote: post #56

I wrote the Oracle driver for the AOLserver web server in 1997. Last year I met a guy who worked at Zipcar who said they were still using it.

It got open-sourced...

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

...with OpenACS probably being among the first, web frameworks. So, that's a legacy that goes back to one of the first, high-traffic sites in existence.

Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#69

Post by nickpsecurity »

damienkatz wrote: post #27

1998. Lotus Formula Language Runtime engine. Completely rewrote the original written by Ray Ozzie. GA released in 1999 in Lotus Notes/Domino R5.

For a second I thought that was Formula Graphics language or system. It was one of Flash's competitors back in the day. I toyed with it a bit. Nope. Just Lotus scripting language. Never messed with that one.

Formula Graphics seems to have really disappeared as it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. There's a CNET download that might be it. Not trying it, though.

Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

#70

Post by shade23 »

Tossrock wrote: post #31

People still play the Warcraft III map I made in 2006, mostly in Russia. It relied heavily on an extension of the scripting language called vJass created by a genius eastern european hacker named Vexorian and was one of the most advanced of its type for a while. It was also ported to the DotA 2 engine, where it has millions (!) of subscribers.

Do you mean the original Dota map? The one from Warcraft 3
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