Quote:
Originally Posted by Reziac
Yep... (I say, posting this from WinXP, where the oldest app still in regular use hies from 1991) ...in fact we lately had a thread here somewhere, "How should I improve the LQ site?" and the roaring reply was, "DON'T FIX IT!" 
[And I wouldn't 'upgrade' vBulletin either. The latest version I've seen is broken in ways that never plagued these antiques.] |
I'm sooo glad I'm not working now. I am so tired of Windows and all the descendents from 1.x through 10 over the years. Same old, same old.
While this adage works well in the corporate world, people who sell or license software must continue to update even if it's only bring to bring the GUI up to the more recent look and feel. I met one guy some years back who had a Win3.x program with the installer last updated in 98. He made a pot load of money in the beginning but that dried up to a drip today because the GUI shows the age. It still does everything they claim and is still unique in the market. But people aren't licensing it any longer (not at 4k a month) due to it. I and others have recommended he update it, and he swears he will but the fact is he can't afford to have it done. That train left the station before 2k became an issue for the IT community.
But we're talking Linux here, so I have to mention working on reverse engineering how that program worked and producing an open source project based on it. But now I'm not working, I have time to relearn Python (from 2.7) and attempt to do just that. Time has always been so frenetic. I ran into Linux in a Slackware book in 95. I'd heard some rumors of a *NIX clone and wanted to learn it. v1.18.x if I recall correctly. Was an absolute bear. If I weren't working with PC hardware at the time I'd never have figured out how to get X up and running. You had to know the horizontal/vertical frequencies and other minute details of the video card and use this oddball editor I'd never seen before, and just barely knew how to open a file, modify it and close it. Something called Emacs. Horrors! Then thrust into compiling C programs just to get them working long enough to determine if I could use it. Setting up and using a 2400 baud modem to connect to the world. But it had such a steep learning curve I put it up until 98 after realizing IBM couldn't market its way out of a wet paper bag and OS/2 was dead for all practical purposes. I'd actually met Gates in 92 and he ticked me off then and I swore from that point on I never use a single product of his ... and I never have. That's why I had my eye on anything else (an original ABM before the phrase was even coined).
Today, Linux is some really slick s**t, err, stuff. I've converted multitudes of the pre-boomer generation over once they realized how much it cost to use a PC with that other OS on it. They just wanted something that worked, didn't care about bells/whistles, just wanted it to work. No crashing on occasions or suddenly have white letters on a blue background displayed. Their toaster, ovens and other gadgets worked that way, so they expect the same from a PC.
I've strayed far enough off the field it's time to sign off and hide from the moderator.
