NEURON's incredible backwards compatibility (opens in new tab)

(dragly.org)

6 pointsdragly10y ago6 comments

6 comments

5 comments · 1 top-level

lokedhs10y ago· 4 in thread

Now I'm being the "kids these days"-guy, but there are codebases that contain much more old stuff than this one. Emacs is a good example, of course. But, I suppose the granddaddy of them all is CICS which has been in active development since the 60s.

draglyOP10y ago

Yes, there are definitely codebases out there that are older. I remember reading about how Emacs is tested by volunteers on older systems just to make sure new changes don't break compatibility. I think such stories are really interesting because they reveal the history behind the software we use today. And in some cases it makes sense to support older hardware, considering how much of our society still runs on old, but stable, computers. Thanks for mentioning CICS - that was new to me.

What struck me as interesting with the old code in NEURON is that NEURON is a high performance simulator still in heavy development. There appears to me few good reasons to run a simulation for a year on a Tektronix 4010 that would take a minute on a laptop. So while I wouldn't be surprised to see Emacs' old stuff still being used, I would assume that NEURON's old code is simply abandoned and was never cleaned up.

lokedhs10y ago

The Tektronix 4010 is not a computer, it's a terminal. Also, xterm still has support for its command language so you can still use it on modern systems.

I'm not saying that NEURON's code base is not old, just that using its Tektronix support is not the best example to use.

1 more reply

Turing_Machine10y ago

I did some googling, and ran across claims that there are programs for Jacquard looms dating from the 19th Century that are still in use today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom

trav422510y ago

Hah! I just realized that "Kids these Days" would make the perfect alternate name for Hacker News! ;-)

P.S. My lawn: get off.

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