[Info-vax] How to Avoid Old Software, Old Bugs?

[Craig A. Berry]

On 11/13/19 7:12 PM, Dave Froble wrote:

> Regardless, there is still some justification for "if it ain't broke, 
> don't fix/break it".  That is just reality.  I personally do not feel it 
> is sustainable.  But there is no "one size fits all", regardless of 
> preferences and beliefs.

The problem is that all software and hardware are already broken.  You
may not know the extent of the damage yet, but stick with the "never
change" approach and you eventually will. Whether that's a critical
application that depends on storing a list of important items
(locations/customers/whatever) in a logical name and eventually blows
the 255-byte limit on equivalence names, or all of the speculative
execution flaws, of which a new one seems to appear every week or two.

The new stuff may not be guaranteed to be perfect, but the old stuff
that is no longer maintained is guaranteed not to be, and likely in ways
that will cause trouble now or in the future but didn't when it was
originally deployed.