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Re^2: Solaris, Perl 5.8 and use 5.005

by dragonchild (Archbishop)
on Mar 07, 2005 at 14:59 UTC ( [id://437235]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re: Solaris, Perl 5.8 and use 5.005
in thread Solaris, Perl 5.8 and use 5.005

They're also missing out on the transition costs, which can be extremely substantial.

There are programs written in the late 70's that are running on hardware built in the early 70's that have been touched only to make them Y2K compliant (and some not even then). These programs do everything from keep the lights on to issue Treasury bonds to determine whether a nuclear-tipped missile should launch or not. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not "upgrade" a nuclear-weapons computer when it's been working just fine for 30+ years. But, maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe, you can keep track of every change made between version 3.4 and version 27.8 and calculate how each will affect every one of the million lines of code written in a language that was deprecated when I was still in diapers.

And, maybe we just didn't need Detroit.

Being right, does not endow the right to be rude; politeness costs nothing.
Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.

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Re^3: Solaris, Perl 5.8 and use 5.005
by demerphq (Chancellor) on Mar 07, 2005 at 19:37 UTC

    Every time i hear this argument im reminded of something. For a while we had a system that nobody wanted to touch. It was a scary hack done by someone in the far reaches of time. Well one day somebody was bold enough to decide to write a replacement system. They put it into play and did a paralel run. Much consternation was caused by the fact the outputs were different. The developer of the new system however was pretty surprised by this and as such began to do a detailed analysis of the code involved. Turned out the output of the two systems was different because the original system never worked properly in the first place. Well, needless to say the old system was soon replaced by the new system, and lo and behold, much money was earned and much rejoicing was done.

    Not that it means your point is wrong, but there is another side to it. ;-)

    ---
    demerphq

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