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I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

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Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#141

Post by ecshafer »

deepsun wrote: post #109
koito17 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Java world, sure. Other programming language ecosystems tend to have tons of churn. For an anecdote, every TypeScript project I find from 2021 or earlier is simply impossible to build nowadays, meanwhile the ClojureScript code I dealt with in a previous job was able to survive 8 years worth of updates to libraries and the core language. I frequently ran into code that was last modified around 2013 because it j…

True story, that's why I moved back to Maven (pom.xml) from Gradle. As a bonus -- IDEs seem to work faster with Maven, I assume because parsing declarative pom.xml is faster than parsing and running imperative build.gradle.

Maven is better than Gradle, full stop. The only real issues with Maven, are the they keep adding features and are bringing in more scripting capabilities. Call me old, but a build system should be purely declarative as a matter of principle. Scripting just leads to someone eventually getting the idea of doing something clever, and then it becomes hell afterwards.

Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#142

Post by worthless-trash »

itronitron wrote: post #136
worthless-trash wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Javascript is still pretty young (comparatively) however I do believe you'd be right in saying that its likely to be around for a very long time.

Interestingly, Javascript is just as old as Java, and Python is older.

Python kinda dies each major release though, there is no backwards compatability goals.

Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#143

Post by ecshafer »

fragmede wrote: post #78
xandrius wrote: post #74

Not to be snarky but 2011 is yesterday for programming, no major shift. I'd imagine almost all code written there would be able to run today.

You've had a very different experience of the past 13 years if you've experienced no major shifts. Even the past year has had a whole big change with the advent of LLMs, nevermind the rise of the web, VSCode, typescript, rust, and more. In 2011, Java was on version 7. We're on 22 now in 2024. There have been some paradigm shifts in Java during that time. Streams (Java 8), Lambda expressions (Java 9), the var keyword…

concurrency is on your list why? DL added concurrency to Java long before 2011.

Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#144

Post by vitro »

cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #99
_ZeD_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that should be the norm. the reality is that is a strong ad against almost all modern frameworks, that may live for as little as a football season

Not really. Not automatically, anyway. Realistically, code lasting forever is, the majority of the time, some engineer’s nerdy wet dream almost completely devoid from any real-world requirements. “This code should last 20 years” should, for most people, be fairly low on the list of desires for a technology stack. In the vast majority of cases, the processes that the software seeks to automate will have been thrown ou…

>>“This code should last 20 years” should, for most people, be fairly low on the list of desires for a technology stack.

>> But let’s not kid ourselves that the stuff we’re writing is even intended to last a long time.

Well, it depends. If you write custom software for enterprises, they very much see it as a long term investment. Software grows with the company and is embedded in it. Nobody wants to pay for complete rewrites every five years..

Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#145

Post by worthless-trash »

stavros wrote: post #112
worthless-trash wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many other languages with a better lindy effect rating ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect ), common lisp, erlang, fortran and more. I won't doubt how java doing well, but other languages have it beat.

The Lindy effect assumes you have no other information about the thing you're estimating. Obviously if I know the thing is on its deathbed, I can't invoke the Lindy effect. Similarly, a hundred-year-old language one person uses any more isn't likely to last another hundred years. Given the relative sizes, I wouldn't bet on Common Lisp outlasting Java just because it's older.

Its likely we will both be dead before either of them are no longer being maintained.

Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#146

Post by jbverschoor »

chii wrote: post #73
jbverschoor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, i have a similar story. I created a database publishing platform exactly that time, a was given full control. I created it in Java, and added a JavaScript engine for scripting templates. The initial product was also side in a few months. It also runs to this day. The war file could be run by any Java server. The code, while old, was in a reasonable state, given some of the migrations. I never thought a…

There's nothing more permanent than a temporary fix put in while waiting for a permanent fix for a problem.

It was never a temporary 'fix'. The product eventually spun off into a new company and was recently acquired by a PE firm.

But yeah, creating software - or any kind of process actually - results in maintenance. If something is used a lot -> too many people depend on it. If the number of consumers/users isn't documented -> you don't know if you can turn it off, but for this problem you can inspect a year's worth of log files :)

Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#147

Post by davidalayachew »

guenthert wrote: post #101
xxs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stuff written for java 0.9 (1996), even with the default package (no namespaces), still runs normally. 2011 is past java 7.

compile once -- run forever! Seriously though, this seems to be due to happenstance (well, commercial interest motivating great continuous engineering effort), rather than by design (forward-thinking) though; unlike, say, IBM's Technology Independent Machine Interface of AS/400.

It's ABSOLUTELY by design.

On the Java Mailing Lists, the creators/stewards of Java are constantly fighting back so many feature requests BECAUSE those features would threaten backwards compatibility. And that mailing list has been going on for a long time now. You can see feature requests (and their subsequent rejections) going as far back as the late 90's lol

Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#148

Post by thaliaarchi »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #8

This is cool. I went there to check if I can find some of mine and found the page that links to some of my public downloads, unfortunately, none of the Zip files were archived. And the Ruffle Flash Emulator still do not work with most interactive Flash Applications!

You might try building Ruffle from source. I’ve found that online versions don’t work for the games I want, due to using an outdated version of Ruffle.

Re: I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs

#150

Post by jdeisenberg »

Plain old JavaScript (without frameworks) holds up rather well. My simplified blackjack game from 1998 (modified in 2003) and a calendar program from 2001 (probably written before then) still work in a modern browser.

The calendar program uses document.write(), which is very embarrassing nowadays, but then again, that was what people did back in 2001.

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