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From the phys.org article:
As modern software systems continue inexorably to increase in complexity and capability, users have become accustomed to periodic cycles of updating and upgrading to avoid obsolescence—if at some cost in terms of frustration. In the case of the U.S. military, having access to well-functioning software systems and underlying content is critical to national security, but updates are no less problematic than among civilian users and often demand considerable time and expense. That is why today DARPA announced it will launch an ambitious four-year research project to investigate the fundamental computational and algorithmic requirements necessary for software systems and data to remain robust and functional in excess of 100 years.
The Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems, or BRASS, program seeks to realize foundational advances in the design and implementation of long-lived software systems that can dynamically adapt to changes in the resources they depend upon and environments in which they operate. Such advances will necessitate the development of new linguistic abstractions, formal methods, and resource-aware program analyses to discover and specify program transformations, as well as systems designed to monitor changes in the surrounding digital ecosystem. The program is expected to lead to significant improvements in software resilience, reliability and maintainability.
DARPA's press release and call for research proposals.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by anubi on Friday April 10 2015, @03:57AM
I have been using C++ for quite some time now. Across several platforms.
I believe damned near anything can be done with C++ with proper libraries.
I still see old DOS systems cranking along on old Borland C++. A good 25 years old.
Even the latest Arduino incantations still speak C++. So does NetBurner's Micrium uCOSII.
As far as the computer architectures go, we really need a good stable open source platform. YMMV, but I believe the Motorola 68000 series had about the most elegant architecture I had ever seen in a machine.
I used to work for Chevron, and if any company took long-term views on things, they did. We had quite a bit of stuff 100 years old still running.
Edison is another company which places value on the long term.
Its a concept you consider during design...how long do you expect it to last? If you are designing a toilet, you may design it to last a hundred years ( *especially* if YOU are the one who is going to have to fix the thing if it leaks! ); if you are designing an information retrieval system for a bean-counter, designing one to last just long enough for your paycheck to clear is probably good enough these days. I have worked for these bean counters and know a lot of them are far more concerned with the numbers for the quarter far more than the numbers ten years from now... its a "tragedy of the commons" thing. Get while the getting is good. I have seen enough of this short-sightedness in the industry to make me nauseous. Push the latest boutique language-of-the-day on these guys. They will pay for it. It will go right back out of style and you can rinse, lather, and repeat ad nauseum. The investor class will freely pay for the damndest things.
Talk about old software still being useful, I still use my old copy of Futurenet Dash-2 occasionally. Same with Borland Turbo C and Eureka. Mathcad. However my Futurenet and PADS stuff is giving way to EAGLE, now that I know I can keep an offline system up and running thanks to a friend who showed me how to keep XP running without it having to be "activated". I was far to afraid to trust anything that had to phone home to get permission to run... I had already been burned with Circuit City Divx disks, and already knew adopting such ephemeral technology was mostly for appeasing companies with far more cash than common sense with eye candy.
I have already seen a lot of very successful companies still using ancient technology, because it did the job. Just as one would still use an operable pelton wheel in a hydroelectric plant - even if it was a hundred years old. Trouble is with a lot of the old technology - its like the old Maytag ad - the support people are unemployed, cuz the thing just keeps working.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Friday April 10 2015, @12:28PM
If you are designing a toilet, you may design it to last a hundred years ( *especially* if YOU are the one who is going to have to fix the thing if it leaks! )
There is a fundamental difference between those who build toilets and those that count beans. The "builders" create things that are used by other people - they build one toilet today, and it get used tomorrow, and the next day, and so on. The "counters"; on the other hand; do some counting today, they do some more counting tomorrow, and so on. The fundamental difference is that a "builder" creates something to perform a function whereas the "counter" only performs a function. That's why toilets last a while whereas the quarterly report only lasts to next quarter.
I'm probably a bit biased and fit in the "builder" category - any time I repeat a function I'm accumulating notes on how to automate it.
its a "tragedy of the commons" thing
Perhaps not. Perhaps it's just a different mindset. There is a large proportion of the population to whom "good enough" is indistinguishable to them from "properly done" - as long as the answer or result is what is required the path taken to arrive there is not important.