You can always detour the API calls, or even ASM-patch the code.
The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#42Stop using a Mac. I still run Windows 95 apps on Windows 11 without issue.
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Almost. Innovative means "using new methods". It does not mean "destroy old".
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spying isn't the only method of gaining knowledge, polls exist And if the definition is vague enough to include both, you can't use it as an argument to exclude one
> polls exist Yes, and they are also notoriously unreliable. With KYCd users (which won’t be the case in voting ‘best coding editor’) it is even unreliable, let alone things like reddit polls.
They aren't as unreliable as to miss an elephant in the room of eternal ignorance, and you don't need to shift to "the best", a basic "have you even heard of this" is sufficient
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Emacs and Firefox are not popular right now, and the author mentioned using even more niche apps with long history, and a lot of his challenges are with things that have been around breaking other things that have been around, so how does he ignore the effect?
Firefox is definitely popular. If you stop a random person on the street and ask them "what is firefox?", they'll probably know that it's a web browser, and a good number will have used it at some point in their lives. Emacs can probably not be considered popular except maybe among the niche of programmers who use Linux or UNIX derivatives.
Why would I need to resort to these idirect measures of knowledge about the past when there is direct data on actual use currently?
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Almost. Innovative means "using new methods". It does not mean "destroy old". SCNR https://xkcd.com/386/
Since you've already ignored the obvious humour.
Break: interrupt (a sequence, course, or continuous state). "this broke the pattern of generations remaining in the place where they were born"
Innovative: (of a product, idea, etc.) featuring new methods; advanced and original. "innovative designs
Ever modified a product to implement a new original advanced method that didn't interrupt a single existing mechanism or structure?
If so, I wish I had your codebase!
Refer to your own link.
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worse. Windows 10 dropped 16-bit application support.
You mean a 64bit architecture literally cannot handle an 8bit instruction as its smallest register is 16bit without swapping modes? This is an architectural problem not an OS constraint. And they're completely correct to abandon this software in my honest opinion as the developers already have. If you need this run a 32bit VM under the 64bit OS so the virtualised CPUs can handle the 16bit application.
You mean a 64bit architecture literally cannot handle an 8bit instruction as its smallest register is 16bit without swapping modes?
Where did you get that piece of misinformation from? 64-bit x86 can handle 64, 32, 16, and 8-bit data just fine, and its instructions are still byte-aligned.
Also, the decision to remove 16-bit support from 64-bit Windows was entirely political. NTVDMx64 adds it back.
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firefox is definitely popular. If you stop a random person on the street and ask them "what is firefox?", they'll probably know that it's a web browser, and a good number will have used it at some point in their lives. Emacs can probably not be considered popular except maybe among the niche of programmers who use Linux or UNIX derivatives.
Why would I need to resort to these idirect measures of knowledge about the past when there is direct data on actual use currently?
6% of worldwide users doesn't sound unpopular to me unless you compare to the Chrome monopoly. I'm just giving you an alternate viewpoint to show that you shouldn't get caught up on how much more popular the most popular program is when trying to determine whether something is popular. There are too many browsers to list, but most people are using Chrome/Edge/Safari or Firefox.
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Holy smokes! There's a formal name for it!! I always privately called it a "Legacy Tail". It was a factor in the selection of a lightweight markup language to support old-fashioned industry (aerospace), but I think it should be a factor in any software selection, to be honest. Thanks for teaching me a thing!
Can you say something more about the markup language case?
Short version? With a pile of XML docs, Asciidoc's DocBook XML backend represented the "Legacy Tail" or Lenny Effect (Lenny Tail?) that gave us some insurance we'd have a stable format. We didn't see that in the Markdown ecosystem - we would have had to pick and choose Markdown variants and extensions, anyway - and the ReStructuredText ecosystem had no such tail and too many Python/Sphinx dependencies (corporate infosec had a real chip on its shoulder about Python).
There was a lot of nights and weekends spent prototyping and wrestling with various old aero/milspec formats, but at the end of the day we came out with a publications format that could do more than the original could, on common tooling, where everyone who wanted to could contribute. I put it in the "win" column.
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would I need to resort to these idirect measures of knowledge about the past when there is direct data on actual use currently?
6% of worldwide users doesn't sound unpopular to me unless you compare to the Chrome monopoly. I'm just giving you an alternate viewpoint to show that you shouldn't get caught up on how much more popular the most popular program is when trying to determine whether something is popular. There are too many browsers to list, but most people are using Chrome/Edge/Safari or Firefox.
6% wasn't your argument, and is also wrong - that's only counting desktop, so it's missing a huge part of the market, which brings the number down to a mere 2.6%, try to spin that as popular unless "monopoly"
And your last statement is true with just Chrome, so you can add any other browser there for the same effect
Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean a 64bit architecture literally cannot handle an 8bit instruction as its smallest register is 16bit without swapping modes? This is an architectural problem not an OS constraint. And they're completely correct to abandon this software in my honest opinion as the developers already have. If you need this run a 32bit VM under the 64bit OS so the virtualised CPUs can handle the 16bit application.
You mean a 64bit architecture literally cannot handle an 8bit instruction as its smallest register is 16bit without swapping modes? Where did you get that piece of misinformation from? 64-bit x86 can handle 64, 32, 16, and 8-bit data just fine, and its instructions are still byte-aligned. Also, the decision to remove 16-bit support from 64-bit Windows was entirely political. NTVDMx64 adds it back.
After further reading, yes I am wrong!
Thanks