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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?

#161

Post by Wingman4l7 »

crmccreary wrote: post #29

1988. A specialized finite element analysis program. Fortran.

Fortran is still being actively used in academia -- the example I know of is running mathematically precise seismic simulations on supercomputing clusters. Some programs have likely been handed down by multiple generations of grad students.

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

#162

Post by Wingman4l7 »

ratboy666 wrote: post #88

My text editor (Assembler, then C), 1982. Some F18 Hornet software (C, ground station support), also 1982. Humphrey Utrasound Biometer (updates, Z-80 assembler), 1992. Kodak Spark-based picture kiosk (Solaris 8 upgrade, Solaris patches for FAT, USB, PCMCIA), 1999. But why?

Another commenter answered that, at least in regards to medical equipment (similarly, embedded systems code for an ultrasound machine, in 1989) -- once code is FDA-approved, people won't touch it. I imagine if the F18 software met some milspec requirement, a similar rule would apply.

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

#163

Post by LfLxfxxLxfxx »

Geoff Streeter, one of the developers at dyalog.com says:

"I suspect that the oldest untouched code (of mine) in the interpreter is the code for balancing a symbol table. This is going to be early 1982 and is untouched since it was written. It implements a technique from Colin Day and published in the Computer Journal in 1976."

Dyalog's APL interpreter is still profitable and actively developed. Many of the source files begin with:

    /*	Copyright (c) 1982 Dyadic Systems Limited	*/

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

#164

Post by amadvance »

zer00eyz wrote: post #71

I was but a teen age boy in 1992. I built a file maker database, for a school system. They have tried to retire it twice. Both projects failed miserably. For the last 10 years it has been maintained by the same office admin. She still calls me every now and again to ask questions.

You are a master for Vendor Lock-In strategies ;)

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

#165

Post by hendler »

ScottBurson wrote: post #122

I'm still using a couple of Lisp macros I wrote in 1980 [0]. I think a few other people are using them too. I've improved them a little since then, but the basic concept is unchanged. [0] https://github.com/slburson/misc-extensions -- specifically 'gmap' and 'new-let'

Oldest I could find here. Congrats! :)

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

#166

Post by datenwolf »

A quick'n'dirty OpenGL texture mapped font drawing class that loads gylphs though the Win32 GDI, I wrote some 17 or 18 years ago. There are much better OpenGL text renderers, that produce better quality output, use far less texture memory and can do Unicode. Yet because I submitted that thing to FlipCode on occasion still ends up in production code.

But I wouldn't even mind that if I wouldn't consider the code quality of that thing to be horrible. When I wrote that I had enough programming knowledge to tackle big projects but I still lacked the years in which I experienced how and where (my) legacy code will end up. I also didn't put too much care into things like keeping the namespace clean.

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

#168

Post by kijin »

Wrote a music library organizer and MP3 player in 2003 because none of the existing options worked the way I wanted. The initial implementation was in VB6, later ported to VB.NET. I don't use it anymore, but at least one of my family members still does. It's really fast on modern hardware and Windows 10.

Unimaginatively named "Music Player", it remains the only music library organizer that I've used so far that completely ignores all the ID3 tags and respects the way I manually organized the files into folders (artists) and subfolders (albums). That's supposed to be a feature, not a limitation. Back then I had a lot of pirated MP3s with horribly inconsistent ID3 tags ;)

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

#169

Post by milankragujevic »

ssijak wrote: post #110

My "personal" website that I made when I was a kid at 2001. I think that I uploaded it to the Geocities free hosting and soon forgot about it. Then a few years back when I googled my name I stumbled upon it haha It is still up after more than 15 years on god know which free hosting and server, it was so funny. And of course it is used as a joke now by my friends :) And of course I have forgot my credentials long long…

Heyo, fellow Serbian friend! Started the same as you, with free websites, back in 2009. It was on Zymic IIRC, I was 9 years old at the time... http://i.imgur.com/8w46hut.jpg Unfortunately, my first ever website, megatelevizija.vndv.com, wasn't archive anywhere and the server that used to serve the website is gone. However, I've been more lucky with Freehostia, who still serve my website: http://sve-i-svasta.freehostia.com/ After 6 years since it's inception :) And it's not yet been hacked, which amazes me lol. I still remember all my login credentials, they're still fresh in my mind, it's not been that long.

btw, it still contains my contact info, which i apparently haven't changed for 6 years. http://web.archive.org/web/20100707073531/http://sve-i-svast...

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