Eventually, if you think hard about it, all software will become abandonware. Like all human beings have to die.
I don’t mean that as an insult, just a reality check for all the tech people out there. OK, you might say that Voyager probce code is still running after years of service and deep into interstellar space, but… Once all that code has served its purpose, guess what? It will wander aimlessly over the vast universe forever and freeze to a electronical death of sorts.
So, even though maybe the code within that space probe might have outlived the very engineers that clustered together to bring that to life piece by piece in the 70’s. That fulfilled its purpose and then soon it will come to rest.
Now, let us admit that rarely and very rarely any kind of software that you write will outlive you, and be running for some 50+ years, while dating back from the beginnings of the Computer era in our civilization.
What do I mean by this? That software is indeed necessary, but to some extent it is utterly and balantly overrated… We care for our stuff, try to squash bugs, find the nasties and deal with CVEs, while trying to patch everything together just for, weeks later, a new sort of malware spur up and bring everything down with it.
It is a neverending battle. One that few of us are willing to fight for, but… for what? Over what? National security some might say, personal pleasure, or what have you, but still… Think about all of the effort that was put into Window 7, and now that stays buried after a few years of service. Of course, you coould argue that a few of its feature aswell some of the source code would have been transmigrated and transmuted into the OSs that which we find today. Still those will then perish in just a few years.
Indeed, I am not trying to rush down on software development, just considering that maybe all the handcrafted artisanal code which we might have been so proud of to urge into existence like a sort of wizardry and conjuring stuff out of electrons and whatnot is but a mere figment of the world and might then come to be soon forgotten.
Not that it is bleak or unnecessary, but I’ve been starting to questiong things as in: what is truly necessary in this day and age? Software? Do we really need to be much stewards of its kinship and protect it with all forces when in due time they will become obsolete? Not obsolete because we want them to lose its purpose, but because of the very nature of it. Software has versions, it iterates, new technologies emerge the old ones die…
Then, again, one could argue that we needed that to be able to arrive just where we are now in terms of technology. Fair point, I say. Still… it doesn’t just removes that argument which I had just made which points into the underlying issue: all software will eventually turn into abandonware.
And, if I were to take a guess, not because that society became highly advanced, but because in our puruits of so, we disrupted the very fabric which makes our world function properly, and in turn, soon, I believe, havoc will break free, and all the electronical paraphernalia from which we rely on will be left hanging, powerless, because of our misdeeds and misdemeanors.
Earth won’t last forever as neither will I, nor you, so then… Why bother so much? We will ship buggy code, will patch whatever we can, but by the very nature of software, it will have bugs and its fair shares of troubles, so please… give your life more purpose and meaning instead of just stressing with the next release window or your pipelines.
Unless people’s lives are at stake because of said software, is it really worth it all of the stress and hurdles? I don’t really know, and that is what’s been nagging me most over the last few months.
Not something to die for, but truly something to think about.
I’m out.
Paece.