<html><head></head><body>The problem here is that we have decision makers who have some experience writing maintenance code or doing system administration, and who likely consider themselves (and have convinced their superiors as such) that they are technically savvy. Most often in my experience these individuals are making decisions on what software to use based on what is popular in industry, by influence of marketing or familiarity (they are used to previous versions of the same product). And these decisions are usually not informed by any understanding of software design or language theory. And so it goes that new and shiney often wins against the mature and seemingly unremarkable. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<pre class="k9mail">Hi arocker,<br /><br />On Tue, 8 Oct 2013 10:55:49 -0400<br />arocker@Vex.Net wrote:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #729fcf; padding-left: 1ex;"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #ad7fa8; padding-left: 1ex;">When I discussed it with the poster's partner, he said that Firefox<br />was ancient because its codebase dated back many years ago -</blockquote><br />Which possibly implies that it works?</blockquote><br />Indeed. As Joel on Software later notes in my link<br />( <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html</a> ):<br /><br /><<<<br />The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been<br />used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they've been fixed.<br />There's nothing wrong with it. It
doesn't
acquire bugs just by sitting around<br />on your hard drive. Au contraire, baby! Is software supposed to be like an old<br />Dodge Dart, that rusts just sitting in the garage? Is software like a teddy<br />bear that's kind of gross if it's not made out of all new material?<br /><br /><br />( Note that Joel has a sequel to this article here:<br /><a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000348.html">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000348.html</a> .)<br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #729fcf; padding-left: 1ex;">The problem with the IT trade's chronic neophilia is the constant<br />reinvention of wheels, and their use in arrangements that have repeatedly<br />been shown to fail. I hate having to invoke <boring old fart mode> to<br />explain why the new shiny is the same as the broken stuff in the corner.</blockquote><br />I agree.<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br /> Shlomi Fish
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