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The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

almy.us

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Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#31

Post by anonzzzies »

lodovic wrote: post #30
anonzzzies wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Emacs and Firefox are not popular right now They are a lot smaller % than vs code or chrome, but compared to most other software they have a huge user base. They are popular software.

Definition nitpicking: They are only popular among a specific crowd. When less than 5% of all users use the software, I wouldn't call it popular globally.

FF was at 6% in 2021 apparently. And emacs, because it is not spyware, unlike most competitors of it, has an unknown user base. The definition (from the Oxford dictionary) is sufficiently vague though; you put a % on it, they don’t.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#33

Post by creshal »

bugbuddy wrote: post #12
tastyfreeze wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse. Windows 10 dropped 16-bit application support.

My first thought was “what’s a 16-bit app?” That tells you my age range.

Good(?) news: Even ten years from now, you'll find machine tools and other industrial applications running 16 bit software in prod.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#34

Post by eviks »

anonzzzies wrote: post #31
lodovic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definition nitpicking: They are only popular among a specific crowd. When less than 5% of all users use the software, I wouldn't call it popular globally.

FF was at 6% in 2021 apparently. And emacs, because it is not spyware, unlike most competitors of it, has an unknown user base. The definition (from the Oxford dictionary) is sufficiently vague though; you put a % on it, they don’t.

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

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#35

Post by gofreddygo »

MilStdJunkie wrote: post #14
nextos wrote: post #3

This post ignores the Lindy effect. Things that have been around for pretty long are likely to stick around for much longer. For example, Unix, Emacs, or Firefox (Netscape) are likely to be quite popular 10 or 20 years down the line. The OS or the editor du jour is not. This is a good rule of thumb for choosing what to invest your time in.

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!

I came across that term from Nassim Taleb's books and talks. Fascinating.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#36

Post by p_l »

MilStdJunkie wrote: post #14
nextos wrote: post #3

This post ignores the Lindy effect. Things that have been around for pretty long are likely to stick around for much longer. For example, Unix, Emacs, or Firefox (Netscape) are likely to be quite popular 10 or 20 years down the line. The OS or the editor du jour is not. This is a good rule of thumb for choosing what to invest your time in.

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?

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#37

Post by p_l »

bruce511 wrote: post #13
arsome wrote: post #5

Stop using a Mac. I still run Windows 95 apps on Windows 11 without issue.

Hah, you'll get down voted to oblivion on HN for recommending Windows over Mac. But broadly speaking you are right. I run software today on Windows 11 that I first acquired in the 90s. Some of it console based that run under the command prompt. While Windows is justly famous for backward compatibility though, there are some exceptions. Firstly 16 bit programs don't run on 64 bit Windows. (Well, unless I fire up a 32…

AFAIK there's Wine-based solution for win16 on 64 bit windows, which might be of interest for those wanting to run 16bit apps.

And DOSBox iirc can run windows 3.x if necessary

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#38

Post by anonzzzies »

eviks wrote: post #34
anonzzzies wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FF was at 6% in 2021 apparently. And emacs, because it is not spyware, unlike most competitors of it, has an unknown user base. The definition (from the Oxford dictionary) is sufficiently vague though; you put a % on it, they don’t.

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.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#39

Post by t-3 »

eviks wrote: post #10
nextos wrote: post #3

This post ignores the Lindy effect. Things that have been around for pretty long are likely to stick around for much longer. For example, Unix, Emacs, or Firefox (Netscape) are likely to be quite popular 10 or 20 years down the line. The OS or the editor du jour is not. This is a good rule of thumb for choosing what to invest your time in.

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.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#40

Post by neckro23 »

p_l wrote: post #37
bruce511 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, you'll get down voted to oblivion on HN for recommending Windows over Mac. But broadly speaking you are right. I run software today on Windows 11 that I first acquired in the 90s. Some of it console based that run under the command prompt. While Windows is justly famous for backward compatibility though, there are some exceptions. Firstly 16 bit programs don't run on 64 bit Windows. (Well, unless I fire up a 32…

AFAIK there's Wine-based solution for win16 on 64 bit windows, which might be of interest for those wanting to run 16bit apps. And DOSBox iirc can run windows 3.x if necessary

> AFAIK there's Wine-based solution for win16 on 64 bit windows

winevdm: https://mendelson.org/otvdm.html

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