Re: <nettime> Goodbye Classic ?

[Jack Jansen <Jack.Jansen@cwi.nl>]

While proprietary OSes (or other indispensable software) definitely  
make the obsolescence problem no easier they are definitely not the  
only source of the problem. Hardware also disappears, and so do online  
resources, peripherals, etc.

Vernor Vinge (Hugo-award winning SF writer, and a computer scientist  
in a previous life) came up with the concept of "programmer  
archeologist" in "A Deepness in the Sky". The book is set very far in  
the future, and to cut a long story short, the idea behind the  
programmer-archeologist is that most programming problems have already  
been solved in one form or another. So a large part of the task of the  
programmer-archeologist is finding previous solutions to the problem,  
and then stacking up emulators to make those programs work again.

Definitely worth reading if you're interested in the long view on  
obsolescence (and even if not, it's a great story),
--
Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen@cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma  
Goldman





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