Timeline for Advice on designing web application with a 40+ year lifetime
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 23, 2014 at 22:22 | comment | added | Nate | @Bobble That is very true. I've worked on COBOL programs that were 40 years old. I know, because there were three pages of date stamped "what was changed comments" at the top of the file, with the first one being early '70s. | |
| Jun 23, 2014 at 6:27 | comment | added | rwong | Metadata is important too. | |
| Nov 4, 2013 at 19:51 | comment | added | MrFox | Since someone brought up the Y2K: be mindful of the UNIX Y2K (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem). | |
| Nov 2, 2013 at 10:34 | comment | added | Bobble | This is solid advice. There are plenty of Cobol programs still running that were originally written 20-30 years ago. Although the technology moves on, if your data and object model is solid, and the data remains of interest, your code will remain in use in some form or other. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 9:15 | comment | added | Clockwork-Muse | Or even if you're using the same vendor, newer versions may change db-specific stuff, whereas the standard is usually a bit more stable | |
| Oct 28, 2013 at 17:27 | comment | added | FrustratedWithFormsDesigner | Good point. Keeping this in mind, if someone really expects their data (and possibly database as well) to be in use 40+ years from now, it might be best to design the database with as few vendor-specific features as possible. Whoever has to untangle/rewrite all of your code that relies on special Oracle/MS-SQL/whatever functionality 20 years from now will not be happy with you. ;) | |
| Oct 28, 2013 at 16:26 | vote | accept | Pete | ||
| Oct 28, 2013 at 16:10 | comment | added | GrandmasterB | The Y2K 'bug' was a data problem - 2 digits instead of 4 were stored. Which is why I suggest focusing on data. | |
| Oct 28, 2013 at 16:03 | comment | added | DougM | "we won't possibly be using this code in 40 years!" is why there was a Y2K bug to begin with. Expecting your code to be replaced is just bad practice. | |
| Oct 28, 2013 at 15:50 | history | answered | GrandmasterB | CC BY-SA 3.0 |