[COFF] The era of general purpose computing (Re: AIX moved into maintainance mode

[segaloco via COFF]

COFF'd

I wonder if we'll see events around 2038 that renew interest in conventional computing.  There are going to be more public eyes on vintage computers and aging computational infrastructure the closer we get to that date methinks, if even just in the form of Ric Romero-esque curiosity pieces.

Hopefully the cohort of folks that dive into Fortran and Cobol for the first time to pick up some of the slack on bringing 2038-averse software and systems forward will continue to explore around the margins of their newfound skills.  I know starting in assembly and C influenced me to then come to understand the bigger picture in which those languages and their paradigms developed, so hopefully the same is true of a general programming community finding itself Fortran-and-Cobol-ish for a time.

- Matt G.

------- Original Message -------
On Saturday, January 21st, 2023 at 10:43 AM, Luther Johnson <luther at makerlisp.com> wrote:


> Yes, I know, but some of that SW development is being automated ... I'm
> not saying it will totally go away, but the numbers will become smaller,
> and the number of people who know how to do it will become smaller, and
> the quality will continue to deteriorate. The number of people who can
> detect quality problems before the failures they cause, will also get
> smaller. Not extinct, but endangered, and we are all endangered by the
> quality problems.
> 
> On 01/21/2023 11:12 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> 
> > Real computers with keyboards etc won't go away; think about
> > all those servers running the backends of the apps and the
> > databases for the cool stuff on the phones. Someone is still
> > going to have to write those bits.
> > 
> > Arnold
> > 
> > Luther Johnson luther at makerlisp.com wrote:
> > 
> > > Well, that's a comforting thought, I hope it goes that way.
> > > 
> > > On 01/19/2023 06:10 PM, John Cowan wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 5:23 PM Luther Johnson <luther at makerlisp.com
> > > > mailto:luther at makerlisp.com> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Computers that are not smart phone-like are definitely on the
> > > > endangered
> > > > species list. You know, the kind on a desk, with a keyboard ...
> > > > 
> > > > I don't have statistics for this, but I doubt it. Consider amateur
> > > > radio, which has been around for a century now. Amateur stations are
> > > > an ever-shrinking fraction of all transmitters, to say nothing of
> > > > receivers, but in absolute terms there are now more than 2 million
> > > > hams in the world, which is almost certainly more than ever.