What old technology that should have been replaced long ago do you still use regularly, and why?
views:
7769answers:
135
+84
A:
Windows batch files.
I use them because they're extremely easy to deploy, even though the language is embarrassingly awful.
Simon Nickerson
2009-04-15 07:12:21
If people knew and appreciated how much mission critical operational software at multi-billion dollar corporations was written in batch the DOW would probably drop 30% overnight.
Wedge
2009-04-15 09:36:15
batch is obsolete like bash is obsolete -1
PintSizedCat
2009-04-15 15:15:07
How is batch obsolete? What has replaced it?
recursive
2009-04-15 15:57:02
Modern Windows OSes have much more advanced scripting capabilities than DOS batch files. Windows Script Host for example allows use of JScript and VBScript. Windows is not DOS-based anymore.
Calvin
2009-04-15 16:16:04
Actually windows batch files are more advanced that DOS-based ones ever were. Type help in a CMD window sometime.
jmucchiello
2009-04-15 17:37:49
@PintSizedCat powershell has obsoleted .bat files. It does a pretty good job IMO
Nathan Reed
2009-04-16 02:15:20
@PintSizedCat: Bash isn't obsolete. It is a fully-fledged scripting language in it's own right. It isn't even bad!
Lucas Jones
2009-04-16 14:52:05
Type 'title poop haha' in a cmd window sometime
justinhj
2009-04-20 17:35:32
batch files are still alive and well in many software packages...sadly
Andrew Sledge
2009-05-01 12:38:59
Is Bourne Again Shell obsolete because of ZSH? It's the only reason I can think of, since bash is not embarrassingly outdated.
dlamblin
2009-08-27 15:01:54
@Nathan Reed - the fact that something is newer is not a guarantee that it will survive in real life practice. Batch was simple, easy and did the job. Those traits are more important than one would think (think VB6 for a similar analogy). PWS is made for programmers, batch files were understandable in just a few minutes of tinkering.
ldigas
2009-09-22 00:22:57
+3
A:
Unix desk calculator: dc. It is very helpful for arithmetic operations in Bourne shell (sh, not bash) scripts.
Unix editor: ed. Helpful for editing in place when your flavour of sed doesn't have the adequate option. Helpful also on very dumb terminals which do not even have an ESC key.
Postscript, because it is easier than PDF to programmatically generate or to edit with a text editor.
mouviciel
2009-04-15 07:13:26
You realize that none of these are actually obsolete, right? Scripting is still broadly used and works well where the overhead of a perl or python is too much. Stream editing is unusual these days, but when you need it you need it, and Postscript can do things PDF cannot.
simon
2009-04-15 15:23:39
dc is really cool! Indispensabel, for example, in expressing Gigabytes in 4,8, or 16k pages. People think you're a magician, when you typeecho "123 1024 * 1024 * 4 / p" | dcat the prompt ...
Ingo
2009-04-15 16:27:31
I know your talking about SH, but in bash you can do "${{operation}}" there: ${{1+1}} = 2. Or, my personal favourite, "python -c 'x=1+1;print(x)'" :-)
Lucas Jones
2009-04-16 14:58:54
Unless you really love reverse polish notation, you can use bc instead of dc: echo "123 * 1024 * 1024 / 4" | bc
skoob
2009-05-03 06:24:57
+115
A:
cmd.exe - Quite possibly the worst command-line interface out there, but it's available on every Windows machine.
Andy White
2009-04-15 07:13:31
better ones? regardless of platform? how about bash, zsh etc...
Maximiliano Guzman
2009-04-15 16:53:08
Yeah, on Windows, I'd say PowerShell is far superior. As far as better shells in general: bash, ksh, tcsh, zsh, (pretty much any unix shell), etc.
Andy White
2009-04-15 17:13:52
@Jweede: Yeah, I honestly believe that Cygwin is possibly the best thing Windows has got going for it these days :)
Dan Moulding
2009-08-31 23:15:07
Although cygwin is the real WTF since you cannot install more packages without using their graphical installer (!)
disown
2010-01-07 15:14:46
+24
A:
I still have a VCR in my living room (although I don't use it much these days).
pmarflee
2009-04-15 07:13:41
LOL ever noticed that she is wearing red and seems to have 2 horns growing out of her head.... eck!
2009-04-15 07:49:42
@littlegeek. Did not notice that until you pointed out. Gold! :)
Marcel Tjandraatmadja
2009-04-15 09:18:16
I am actually currently migrating my source code from VSS right now.
Jeff Cuscutis
2009-04-15 11:56:20
I hate you VSS. YOU HAVE ONE JOB, KEEP MY SOURCE ***SAFE***! DO YOU DO THAT, NOOOOOOOOOOO! IT'S IN YOUR #$%@#%^#$# NAME: "source" "safe"!!! AAAAAARRGGH!
Aardvark
2009-04-15 14:22:05
I've been using my sourcesafe -> bazaar importer.. Took way too long to build, because of how crappy sourcesafe is. And a lot of it is bad hacks :(
FryGuy
2009-04-16 02:09:39
I love that SourceSafe no longer works in anything built on Vista cus they forget to implement WebDav.POST. Muppets.
Ed Woodcock
2009-04-19 17:35:25
I actually met someone who actually saw no problem with VSS. I honestly believe he is one of the very very very few who actually didn't have problems with it OR he didn't have to maintain it.
Nazadus
2009-04-19 18:16:44
@Nazadus, I thought there was no problem with vss until the day when I've switched to SVN :D
Nicolas Dorier
2009-04-19 19:58:04
@Matthew Whited, not a fan of Clear Case, that UI with the eye-ball, ug! Made my brain hurt. I recall a lot of the more modern SCM features were all wrapped up in "RUP" that there no way to use just what you wanted. It was all-or-nothing. Still, better then VSS.
Aardvark
2009-05-13 20:47:15
@Aardvark: I mean... do you really _believe_ in microsoft marketing keywords ?
Stefano Borini
2009-08-26 13:26:50
@Stefano Borini: I drank some cool aid at a TechEd, never been right since...
Aardvark
2009-08-26 17:05:20
LOL, Notepad is the best friend of the user on Windows, after Paint and card games of course
Steel Plume
2009-04-15 11:34:57
Why? Why do you do that? There are so many alternatives out there and every single one of them is better ;-)
Joachim Sauer
2009-04-15 13:08:24
Notepad is the top app in the most used section of my Start menu. :)
Andrei Vajna II
2009-04-15 16:01:54
How notepad is better than "other apps": 1. Available on any default installation of Windows. 2. Faster load time. 3. Best unicode support. 4. Less clumsy and confusing menu system.
CDR
2009-05-03 06:31:41
Are we upvoting the answer because we also use it, or because it shouldn't be used? Notepad is really the most "embarrassing" because there is so much hostility towards its continued use (especially as a development tool). And unlike VSS or IE, people aren't forced to use it -- we choose to.
harpo
2009-05-13 20:40:17
@CDR "Faster load time" only if you're opening a small file or creating a new one. Try opening a 10MB log file in Notepad :P
Davy8
2009-05-13 21:44:51
use notepad++... x10000000 better.. and to extend what Davy8 said, at least you can open a 10MB file without sending it non-responsive.
waqasahmed
2009-08-19 22:34:23
@CDR Not only is notepad available on any "default installation" of Windows, it can't be deleted! (at least on XP)
I. J. Kennedy
2009-08-26 13:54:08
I deleted Notepad on my Windows XP machine. Replaced it with Notepad2. You have to make sure you eradicate it from `\WINDOWS`, `\WINDOWS\system32` and `\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache` all at once. Windows will prompt you for your installation CD so it can restore it, but you can cancel it. Then just rename `Notepad2.exe` to `Notepad.exe` and place it in all aforementioned locations.
Samir Talwar
2009-08-26 14:01:57
How Notepad is worse than other apps: 1. Doesn't support Unix line endings, 2. No syntax highlighting, 3. No recent files menu, 4. No tabs/MDI.
DisgruntledGoat
2009-08-26 14:18:45
The lack of Unix line ending support is what erks me the most about Notepad. What's the point of an editor if it won't let me edit half of the files I work with day to day?
Bill Casarin
2009-08-26 18:26:15
lightning fast, no bells or whistles...it does exactly what is says on the tin and I have nothing against it. AND, if you have a 10MB file, you really should be using an application other than a simple text editor to interface with it (IMHO)
Jason Irwin
2009-10-18 06:06:18
+23
A:
Visual C++ 6.0 compilers!
Many people on SO really wondered about this.
Reason for not replacing-- Hmmm... I have not spoken to my manager yet!
aJ
2009-04-15 07:19:19
If it's a budget problem, you might want to have a look at the latest VS Express editions. IMO even these are better than VC6.
Adrian Grigore
2009-04-15 07:34:59
The language accepted by VC6, and also other details such as workarounds for stl bugs and the way it loads DLLs, means a VC6 codebase requires significant effort to port to C++. Most VC6 apps pre-date common use of unit testing, so it really can be a high risk, complicated exercise.
Pete Kirkham
2009-04-15 09:19:14
One thing however, the msdn help integration in vc6 is MUCH MUCH better than all the .net attempts.
Jim T
2009-04-15 11:41:14
The VC6 compiler is still widely used within embedded development (telecom in particular). Most emulators and debugging tools are centered around the VC6 toolchain.
sharkin
2009-05-08 08:55:39
I worked on a very monolithic VC6 project where we attempted to drag it kicking and screaming into the modern age. If I recall correctly, the deal breaker was getting it to compile with the _UNICODE flag-- it just required too many risky changes all over the place.
pjbeardsley
2009-06-12 18:38:40
+23
A:
Pen and paper.
It isn't because computer interfaces aren't good enough (though that's an important consideration). The main reason is that it just seems more human. Another reason is that, while they have their own failings, pen and paper can't be hacked, can't crash, and remove that dangerous temptation to get the computer to help you out.
Artelius
2009-04-15 07:19:28
I was going to go with Pencil and Paper. I use them as the first step in wireframing sites/applications.
Travis
2009-04-15 07:48:35
@tinkertim: Hah. Nice, I need to remember that. Wish I could upvote comments :)
Mihai Limbășan
2009-04-15 16:08:33
Running out of ink is about as annoying as a file being read-only. Get a new pen already.
Artelius
2009-04-15 21:54:18
Its not embarrasing to use pen and paper. Heck, I would be awed by someone programming on pen and paper (not punch cards).
MrValdez
2009-04-16 08:05:08
+42
A:
Paper, especially for typography proofing: an LCD just can't compete with that kind of DPI and contrast.
splicer
2009-04-15 07:24:12
I'm tempted to upvote this. But then again, I don't consider paper to be remotely obsolete. It still has many advantages.
Wedge
2009-04-15 09:33:28
Paper has some advantages that e-media cannot overcome. You can read papers while sitting in the throne room, with no danger of short-circuiting any text...
Tim
2009-04-15 10:31:12
Paper is not obsolete or deprecated! Nothing better has ever come along to replace it.
David
2009-04-15 15:52:11
@Tim, you can do something else with the paper there ! It's multi-function... Thank's to domotics technologies, maybe we can imagine a computer in this place too.
Nicolas Dorier
2009-04-15 17:20:06
Yeah, fold your laptop into an airplane and throw it. Which tech allows you to still read the document afterward?
jmucchiello
2009-04-15 17:39:44
@Tim, @Slashene - I often read my iPhone on the toilet. But I haven't tried wiping my arse with it yet. Maybe there's an app for that?
Daniel Earwicker
2009-07-24 07:02:40
+5
A:
ASP ..we have 150+ applications and 30,000+ webpages in the intranet using ASP ;-(
The application works fine... So what is the need for upgrade -> Business
Shoban
2009-04-15 07:35:57
I would work out a business case on maintaince costs v developer/tester time. That should shock any busienss manager..
2009-04-15 07:48:33
I have tried many times and failed ;-) BTW your website in your profile does not open. Gives me an error.
Shoban
2009-04-15 08:10:54
I think if you work on a business case you'd fail to success on money wise :)
dr. evil
2009-04-15 08:24:36
+5
A:
vi (well, gvim). But only because nobody seems to have been able to come up with something more decent.
wds
2009-04-15 07:36:47
okay it's not obsolete. The point is it's so old that you'd think someone would've come up with something better. I'd posit they haven't.
wds
2009-04-16 17:05:20
DisgruntledGoat - while I hate to argue with one's choice of development tool the fact that Vim is small, runs everywhere and can do pretty much anything those big fancy IDEs can do is pretty hard to ignore. Also there's GVim (for Windows too!) so the "no GUI" isn't really an argument.
Cfreak
2009-08-26 14:51:33
+4
A:
Java 1.4 and WL 8.1.5, also we have just been warned that SVN is forbidden and we will need to migrate back to VSS. Lovely don't you think?
Edit: to clarify I work as a service provider, I work for a public institution implementing several community requirements. Though I do agree that what they are paying me is hardly enough to endure all this crap....
Nuno Furtado
2009-04-15 07:39:02
I'd just lie and say that since Microsoft dropped Java, they have made it hard to interoperate a Java development environment with VSS and some other manager-scare speak. Bet any .NET people in your company are on 3.5 already as well, why is Java held back to 5 year old standards?
JeeBee
2009-04-15 09:36:33
Any company that bans subversion/git/anything but VSS from use is not worth the salary for the frustration incurred while working there.
Chris
2009-04-15 14:00:57
But if she were open source, you could just fork her and go about your business.
Chris Farmer
2009-06-12 18:01:13
@chris - I upvoted you, and it just hit me what a strange sense of humor we have, when compared with normal people. It's like letter I read in DDJ many years ago about some non-Unix guy who kind of freaked out reading Unix docs about parents killing their children. Christ, how can you impart the humor of that to someone who isn't in this biz? That's why beer breaks without the spouse are important in this line of work.
xcramps
2009-08-26 14:53:56
@Peter Mortenson: did you have some weird goal of editing every single answer to this question?
MusiGenesis
2009-10-13 00:21:08
But xcramps, what if some of your coworkers ARE women? Whatever will you do then?
pfctdayelise
2009-10-13 04:23:51
A great comedian RedFox said: "Show me a husband that won't and I will show you a neighbor that will." If you think she is out of date then dump her. There are oceans of men that will make her feel "current". Since your answer is no then evidently she is updated and relevant.
Phil
2009-10-31 03:18:56
+35
A:
Classic ASP...I itch uncontrollably and start to shake every time I have to maintain one of those pages rather than rewriting it in ASP.NET!
We have 3K+ pages just sitting out there right now.
Mark Struzinski
2009-04-15 07:43:22
Do you agree If you could replace word 'ASP' to 'Classic ASP' since this term is more famous for ols ASP apps. ?
this. __curious_geek
2009-04-15 07:51:35
Funny enough I think writing Classic ASP is so much quicker for dirty tasks then writing ASP.NET. It's like writing perl to hack something instead of writing a .NET application with the all compiling overhead and other complexity of it.
dr. evil
2009-04-15 08:21:54
Worst part about is that I have the ok to rewrite this stuff - I just can't carve out the time!!
Mark Struzinski
2009-04-15 13:38:47
Too funny. I was just taking a break from maintaining some awful legacy classic ASP when I came across this post. If only I could upvote this more than once.
Dinah
2009-04-15 14:20:41
+9
A:
Objective-C. Wow, it's like going back in time 15 years after using C#/.NET.
A dynamic, compiled language with KVO, bindings, compatible with C, C++, bridged to Ruby, Python, Javascript and the CLR. I like it.
sjmulder
2009-05-09 15:00:50
I think Objective-C would be great, if there was a standard GUI library.
computergeek6
2009-08-26 15:00:14
I use the tiny c compiler for quick and dirty C programming now, but I have TC 3.1 around...
Adam Davis
2009-04-15 15:00:59
+45
A:
HTML tables.
I just really don't care what it looks like if I'm the only person that needs to look at it.
Mitch Flax
2009-04-15 07:46:38
It's actually a good idea to use tables, especially when you want the browser to render a table ;-)
Tim Büthe
2009-04-15 07:56:15
well there is an alternative and it's CSS :) But most of the time it doesn't worth the hassle.
dr. evil
2009-04-15 08:23:09
For layout, I presume! To be fair, I find the CSS route easier because the HTML is just DIVs rather than the mush of table tags.
JeeBee
2009-04-15 09:28:30
For large-scale layouts, the (superior) alternative is CSS, but that does *not* mean you now have to use CSS instead of <table> everywhere. It's still perfectly OK to use <table> when you need, ya know, a table! Like, for displaying lots of data in rows and columns...
Michael Borgwardt
2009-04-15 15:01:40
@tweakt Funny that site is using divs + css and fails to render properly in IE8. If they had used tables....
matthews
2009-04-19 17:09:56
Using tables for layout gives me a double hit of joy. First, the guilty pleasure of doing something I'm not supposed to; second, the satisfaction at actually being able to get it to look the same in 7 browsers.
Alex
2009-05-01 23:23:42
My favourite thing about giveupandusetable.com is the correct semantic usage of the <sarcasm> tag ;)
Delameko
2009-08-26 17:13:00
I'm constantly amazed that people find HTML tables easier for layout than CSS. Are you all using visual layout tools? Anytime I have to manage table layouts of any real complexity, I get utterly lost in the markup. Anytime I have to make even trivial changes to table layouts of any real complexity, I end of chasing a seemingly endless stream of unintended consequences.CSS could be much better than it is—and browser behavior more than that—but it certainly is preferable for the complex layouts I deal with on a daily basis.
eyelidlessness
2009-10-13 01:27:47
+18
A:
8051 microcontrollers. They date from the late 70's or early 80's but are now just so cheap and available plus I have so many pre-written libraries for them it would be daft to use any other micro for low end jobs.
IanW
2009-04-15 08:00:14
-1: b/c the 8051 is old does not mean it is outdated! you make the case in your answer why it is ideal in many projects.
San Jacinto
2009-08-26 14:45:40
We worked on an 8051 in my Embedded Systems course. I can see why they're popular.
rlbond
2009-08-26 17:37:58
There are better 8-bit MCUs available - like the HC08, a direct descendant of of the 6800, which itself predates the 6502, which was in widespread use in the 1970s. Self-contained HC08s are available for about $1 each in quantity.
Chromatix
2010-04-03 07:38:45
+2
A:
I use fetchmail, postfix, procmail and mutt for my email. Until just a few years ago I used to use elm. I have something like 1 GB of Unix mailbox files going back around 15 years and have not gotten around to migrating them.
This is a legacy system that dates from my days of dial-up Internet connectivity and I have been procrastinating about migrating it for five years or so. This has been a bit of a PITA since around 2004 when HTML formatted email got very popular all of sudden. Being text-based, elm and mutt don't really do a good job of handling it.
ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells
2009-04-15 08:03:26
+4
A:
We still manage our bug reports in a homegrown database written in dBase IV.
And I couldn't live without batch files in Windows (effectively being DOS-BatchFiles).
RED SOFT ADAIR
2009-04-15 08:03:55
+7
A:
Paper for UI prototyping. It really works surprisingly well!
Adrian Grigore
2009-04-15 08:17:10
It dont thing paper for UI prototyping is obsolete. I think it is important to use paper in the early phases. Very easy to grasp, and the details are not that important. (colors/font etc)
ThorHalvor
2009-04-15 13:15:13
I really don't think it's obsolete either. But still, paper is an old technology, isn't it?
Adrian Grigore
2009-04-15 18:50:31
While playing you can use the excuse you are working on solving an NP complete problem (see http://for.mat.bham.ac.uk/R.W.Kaye/minesw/ordmsw.htm)
Simon Nickerson
2009-04-20 18:31:54
+43
A:
I find myself using Microsoft Calculator, even if I'm working in Excel!
Janco
2009-04-15 08:27:19
Yes, definitely! That's the best tool! I'd like to see a better calculator from another OS.
Andrei Vajna II
2009-04-15 16:05:30
I pit http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/PowerCalcPowertoySetup.exe over any calculator any day. the hex conversions and rudimentary graphing alone are worth it.
Arnshea
2009-04-17 00:36:53
Using calc even when in Excel makes perfect sense. You don't need to mark and delete cells from your excell when you are finished. Plus there is the less typing/clicking.
CDR
2009-05-03 06:35:28
The first two programs I install on a new Windows machine i SciTE and Console Calculator http://ccalc.shanebweb.com/ then I had keyboard shortcuts to them. I feel naked without them.
Jonas Elfström
2009-05-13 21:43:44
@Andrei Vajna II - To me, Gnome's calculator is way better. I like to be able to enter a full equation instead of 1 number at a time.
dotjoe
2010-05-20 15:46:15
+16
A:
My mouse. It should have been replaced by a Minority-Report-Fullbody-ShufflOMatic long ago.
Leonidas
2009-04-15 08:32:07
No way, who wants to ponce around like some mime artist?! And what really gets me about that is that they're still using physical storage thingies to move data between workstations (flat cards that slide into the glass screen, or - strangest of all - a small wooden ball with words scratched on it).
Daniel Earwicker
2009-07-24 07:08:30
+8
A:
Edlin .. I have a DOS 3.3 box that is (still running) a dial-up bulletin board system.
We're not even going to get into the compiler.
If confronted with this later, I will deny it and claim my Google OpenID was compromised.
Tim Post
2009-04-15 08:32:30
I used Edlin *once* in 1990, and immediately gave it up on the grounds that it was hopelessly outdated. I think even the folks at Bletchley Park would have snorted contemptuously at Edlin.
MusiGenesis
2009-10-13 00:27:53
+7
A:
By definition, anything still being used is not obsolete, but in terms of deprecated processes, we still have some Windows/DOS batch files knocking around - they still work and we don't have the time or inclination to rebuild them solely to have a newer technology achieve exactly the same result.
Unsliced
2009-04-15 08:37:39
Wow...I didn't know anyone still used that monstrosity. At a previous employer, we actually had one guy on staff who did nothing but babysit our PVCS install.
Matt Peterson
2009-08-26 13:50:13
+53
A:
Visual Basic 6.0. Not really obsolete, but embarrassingly horrible.
Simeon Pilgrim
2009-04-15 09:23:01
I wish I knew enough to know what's embarassingly horrible about vb6 cos I think it's great.
kjack
2009-04-15 13:20:33
Well the editor for one thing, no mouse scroll courses no end of pain. The way it dynamically search for .dll and .ocx files each time you open the project, thus the project files changes, then then break your build machine. The bloody annoying auto compile with it's modal pop-up.
Simeon Pilgrim
2009-04-15 20:42:13
If your trained to work within the VB mindset, I could see it working, but I'm so used to moving around the code with it not being complete until I'm done, so the auto-compile breaks my thought train.
Simeon Pilgrim
2009-04-15 22:41:26
I generally stick in a dummy var to avoid the message, but you can turn it off at Tools -> options, uncheck "auto syntax check" (Thanks to MarkJ for this tip)
kjack
2009-04-15 23:17:18
Argg, don't solve the simple hates, I still refuse to be happy, we hates it. We hates it my precious.
Simeon Pilgrim
2009-04-16 08:41:01
In Scotland, loads of secondary schools *still* teach VB6 as part of their "Computing" Standard Grade (no idea what the US equivalent is), some even for their [Advanced] Higher (think AP CS). Thankfully the tests just say "an appropriate high-level language".
Lucas Jones
2009-04-16 14:54:50
@person-b We don't generally have those types of "tracks" in high school, though some high schools may have a "programming" class or whatever. When I was in HS that class was VB of some sort, but I didn't take it, and I don't know if it still is (I took AP CS).
Adam Jaskiewicz
2009-04-16 22:22:19
I can't believe VB6 is still around, and that people are still using it. Once you let go of it, it becomes like a bad movie you saw years ago. I did nothing but VB from 1995 to 2005, and yesterday I got down-voted for getting a VB6 question totally wrong. Felt great. :)
MusiGenesis
2009-10-13 00:16:56
@Simeon: I'm embarrassed to say this, but if you install the MS IntelliMouse driver, you can scroll in VB6, if I remember correctly. The really horrible thing about VB6 is that it's a dead end technology. There really was no CREDIBLE way to move your apps to VB.NET. You just pretty much have to rewrite it all or suck it up and live with it until you or your company goes away.
Dave Markle
2009-10-13 01:30:55
+1
A:
Apache Axis 1. It is full of bugs and really limited.
It is deprecated by Axis2, which has only the name in common with Axis1 : total API rewrite. I gave up the migration after 3 weeks of tears.
chburd
2009-04-15 09:32:50
A:
FoxPro 2.6 for DOS for one old and large program complex. It's laughable, but it's true. We have no time to reconstruct it using new technologies. Even more laughable fact is that often I wonder at speed of FoxPro, especially in comparison with modern "multitier" systems :)
macropas
2009-04-15 09:37:55
+26
A:
HTML and CSS.
They are defective by design. So many years have gone by and the committee responsible for their development hasn't done their job to fix and improve them.
Requirements of these days stretched HTML/CSS far over their limits. And there are still no alternatives.
User
2009-04-15 09:55:52
actually, they are not defective by design, only the whole community abused and *raped* html for new stuff. the whole http-protocol needs to be dumped and a new one created
Mafti
2009-04-15 14:16:17
The creators of HTML and CSS failed to really take into account that people might want to *design* web pages. The deficiencies of html and CSS are obvious to anyone who has attempted even the most modest of designs.
Breton
2009-04-16 06:31:37
Since HTML was created with the idea of NOT specifying any design (which was a sensible idea back then), I don't consider it to be defective. We just constantly try to use it for something it was not designed for - that's our fault, not HTML's.
Treb
2009-05-05 10:00:22
There are plenty of fundamentals flaws in the HTML spec, even without people abusing it. HTML is a horrible standard (if you can even call it that, since it doesn't really standardize much, only tell you what you "should" do, if you're in a good mood. Oh, and let's not ignore all the contradictions inherent in the specs for making it XHTML compatible. (such as <br/> actually having a different meaning in "actual" HTML - which no browser implements, for obvious reasons). Yes, it is broken. And that is why people abuse it, which in turn helps keep it broken.
jalf
2009-06-12 18:07:07
@Mafti. HTTP needs to be replaced to add additional interactivity, IP needs to be replaced to add security. In fact, pretty much every Internet protocol needs to be torn up and replaced to fix something that turned out to be a flaw or shortcoming. Except the replacements will have their own flaws and shortcomings once we find new ways to use and abuse them over the next few decades.
Tyler McHenry
2009-08-26 17:05:02
@Tyler At least we can spent these decades with better protocols. After first decade or two of their integration, of course.
Kuroki Kaze
2009-12-14 15:47:01
+3
A:
SSI: Server-side includes. They are a universal (at least on Apache) templating system, are remarkably fast, and there's a work-around for not being able to natively create arrays. Return JSON objects/arrays as a string, and let the client do the work.
George Jempty
2009-04-15 10:04:14
+1
A:
We're still using the DB-Library API to communicate with a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database ...
Jim T
2009-04-15 11:49:41
+12
A:
Visual InterDev 6.0, talking via FrontPage extensions to Visual SourceSafe.
It is so hunkered that if any of the config breaks, we're not sure that we can put it back together again...
Marc Gravell
2009-04-15 11:59:33
OK seriously Marc, inquiring minds want to know why InterDev is still in use in your toolset. VS has been able to do classic ASP for a while, I thought?
p.campbell
2009-04-15 17:26:16
@Philoushka - first, I must stress that this is only for legacy maintenance - but the reason is that the legacy build etc process depends on the FP/VSS integration, and it simply isn't worth investing the time to change it. Our .NET stuff is much better organised, you'll be glad to hear.
Marc Gravell
2009-04-15 18:35:59
"if any of the config breaks, we're not sure that we can put it back together again..." Oh dear. That's exactly the situation with our TFS 2005 install. Tried upgrading it to 2008 once, but just got a strange and apparently unique error message. It took me three days to install it "correctly" in the first place (it seems to work, most of the time). We're looking at moving to Mercurial...
Daniel Earwicker
2009-07-24 07:11:15
+3
A:
Borland Kylix.
Badly implemented and now unsupported.
I work on a web site on which Kylix has been used to build a bunch of libraries that are called from a scripting language. A bit like a web site running PHP calling its C libraries - only is a proprietary scripting language and Kylix libs.
Steve Claridge
2009-04-15 12:06:29
+35
A:
My Iomega ZIP drive with 100 MB disks...
I think because of some twisted psychological romantic flaw in me.
sharkin
2009-04-15 12:06:57
Yes, but they don't fizz, and twizzle, and rinzchrinsch when I insert them..
sharkin
2009-04-15 17:38:19
You know drug companies give away 128MB USB drives like candy, right?
MusiGenesis
2009-10-13 00:19:55
+8
A:
Predating digital computers:
Time measured in hours, minutes and seconds. Having a base 2-12-60(-60) system might have been nice when we had to convert by hand (divisible by 2,3,4,(5,),6(,10) is useful), but not any more when we use computers to calculate.
At that, the decimal system. Why not switch to binary (or hexadecimal, that's the same)!
As an astronomer: the magnitude system. The brightest star visible by the human eye gets 'magnitude 1', the second brightest '2' all the way to magnitude 6. This happens to be a base 2.5 scale in luminosity. Base 2.5!
We should discard all these millennia old technologies and reinvent them as if we did not know how we originally did it.
BlackShift
2009-04-15 12:15:42
good point! though we have layers of abstraction built around most (1.1.1970+millis, double)
Andreas Petersson
2009-04-15 14:20:22
Good luck with that. Remember when the US officially converted to metric and now everyone in the US uses metric all the time?
simon
2009-04-15 15:20:03
Astronomy is full of perverse examples. Until 1925, astronomers used the 24 hour clock system with noon as hour zero!
Daniel Earwicker
2009-07-24 07:15:54
Actually, the brightest star visible in the sky has magnitude -26.8. It's name is Sol. Ignoring that, Sirius has magnitude -1.5.
Chromatix
2010-04-03 07:43:50
Despite being under forty, I own a couple of slide rules, and occasionally bang off rough calculations on them. Mostly to freak out those younger still, but...
dmckee
2009-04-18 14:31:06
+13
A:
Delphi 6.
Because Borland/Inprise/CodeGear/WhateverItsCalledNow thoroughly lost its way after Delphi 7 and I was only upgrading on the alternative releases. I did buy Delphi 2005 but never upgraded anything to it as the hassle was simply not worth the effort (so what a waste of GBP 300 that was). I still have several Win32 programs for clients in Delphi 6 and apart from a certain aging of the interface they work as well as they ever did.
IMHO Delphi is still the best native Win32 environment out there. Blindingly fast compiler, properly structured language and does 99.8% of everything you can do in C++ without all the development overheads of that.
Cruachan
2009-04-15 12:58:35
You were upgrading on the wrong cycle! 5 and 7 were the versions to get.
Gabe Moothart
2009-04-15 17:19:17
That's because I started with Delphi 1 (16 bit) then purchased Delphi 2 (32 bit windows 95!) when it came out, then was on the alternative version upgrade cycle thereafter
Cruachan
2009-04-15 19:21:22
Yep, D7 was best. I hate the fact that they don't release Personal Editions any more. I'm cheap... :(. But I downloaded Turbo Pascal from their (Borland's) "Antique Software" site. It's quite good, actually...
Lucas Jones
2009-04-16 14:56:38
Indeed, it's possibly my main regret over the way software has developed that Borland fucked up so awfully over Delphi and it's other tools. The management that decided such great software company should concentrate on ALM or whatever it fucked itself up with should be taken out and shot.
Cruachan
2009-04-16 18:32:15
+1
A:
Classic ASP & Visual Basic 6.0.
We don't seem to get the budget or time to migrate fast enough...
KenB
2009-04-15 13:01:56
The question asked for "embarrassingly obsolete". I don't think it's embarrassing to be using the last good version of a Windows operating system.
David
2009-04-15 15:53:20
To quote the original question "What old technology that should have been replaced long ago do you still use regularly, and why?", it says old not obsolete :)
DrHazzard
2009-04-16 13:19:53
@dotjoe: I Disagree - So far I have not heard any good reason to replace it.
Treb
2009-05-05 09:54:39
Surely Vista is the funny answer; not even service packed to be useful yet, and already its successor is available to pre-order.
Daniel Earwicker
2009-07-24 07:03:43
Windows 7 is actually nice enough that it may make XP obsolete, however it's too early to conclusively say that just yet.
Esko
2009-08-26 13:30:52
If XP were 64bit (I know there is one, but I've heard it's poorly supported), then I would never leave it... Unfortunately at some point I am going to have to realise I need to upgrade. I use Vista at work and it's shocking in everyway compared to vista.
Ian
2009-08-26 13:53:00
yea, my previously inherited machine had XP64 on it. That twas hell on earth!
dotjoe
2009-08-26 14:12:16
I still prefer XP. Main reasons are that it has a better interface, for me at least. I have a more responsive feeling.
Dykam
2009-08-26 14:44:33
A:
Everywhere I go I seem to be maintaining an old Access-VBA application that has been upsized to Microsoft SQL Server.
John Nolan
2009-04-15 13:44:36
+8
A:
Windows 2000 and lots of Windows batch files.
Oh, and Internet Explorer 6.
aintnoprophet
2009-04-15 14:01:47
It was the first GUI programming environment I ever used, as a kid. Wow.
sjmulder
2009-05-09 15:03:32
Doesn't it actually dump your code in the exe file as plain text and then interpret on the fly?
lhahne
2009-05-28 08:13:03
Wow, I got started programming on VB3. It didn't even have *classes,* so I have no idea how I did *anything* with it. I remember using arrays a lot, and writing lots of code to delete rows by copying subsequent rows one element back and then Re-dimming.
MusiGenesis
2009-10-13 00:31:27
I'm still maintaining one major system made in VB3, once you embrace the constraints, it is amazing what you can do.
Eduardo Molteni
2009-10-13 11:30:51
Yeah my corporation uses it because its the 'safest' I laugh, and the main security guy in charge always puts up such a battle to make his point clear that IE6 is SAFEUUUR than ANYTHING EVER, because MS provides 0 day patches (ha!)
Jakub
2009-08-26 13:32:24
Where I work is just now moving to IE7 so I can feel your pain... fixing bugs in our new CMS in IE 6 that break other browsers is jut painful at times.
JB King
2009-08-26 13:49:24
We haven't yet made the transition yet to IE7, but my latest project just finished where the only officially support browser was IE6... and that was what the developers' mindset was... IE6 only. Terrible.
Zack Mulgrew
2009-10-13 01:32:11
Hey, I love my vista laptop. Although I have all default vista settings reversed to their sane "not recommended" counter parts.
hasen j
2009-04-17 00:08:05
This one deserves 100 upvotes. My (least) favorite thing about Vista is the fact that despite doing everything in my power to make my Windows Explorer windows use Details mode always and everywhere, once in awhile windows randomly come up in Medium Icons mode. This drives me berserk.
MusiGenesis
2009-10-13 00:36:05
+2
A:
Gah.
Visual Basic 6.0. Complete with purchased controls that we don't have the disk for anymore, and whose company has been out of business for years. We have two old applications that are still in production, which I refuse to update at all. If we ever lose this one box that the components are installed on, we are probably screwed.
Lotus Domino R5. My first foray into programming. We build dozens of applications on this platform, and have spent millions trying to get off of it. There are still a dozen or so applications in use.
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS). We have an OLD version of VSS, which I am working on replacing currently.
Old Java executable JARS. We have a smattering of scheduled tasks that point to old Java JARS, which require long deprecated versions of the platform.
That is all I can think of at the moment.
Chrisb
2009-04-15 14:17:59
dude, time to enter the 90's... embarcadero gives 5.5 away as a free download.
Wouter van Nifterick
2009-05-03 06:45:35
+2
A:
PowerBuilder 6.5, Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere 9, Visual Basic 6.0 , Visual C++ 6.0, Windows batch files (much of my build process depends on them), ArrayList in C#.
Mark
2009-04-15 14:24:45
I don't know about reliable, those metal slides always broke off in my drive bay. boo.
bendewey
2009-04-15 15:06:28
Back in the day, if I had to move data across town, I would make 2 or three copies of a floppy b/c by the time I got to the destination at least one of those floppies would have a read error.
CLaRGe
2009-04-15 15:14:16
@bendewey - I have loads of old floppies with the slide removed years ago that still work fine (I always use a floppy for bios flashing et cetera)
DrHazzard
2009-04-15 17:08:24
My son built his first PC for his 14th birthday. He didn't even want a floppy. I was sad. :-)
CLaRGe
2009-04-15 19:18:08
Reliable, feh. I never had a 5.25" disk spontaneously go bad. 3.5", all the time.
Jeffrey Hantin
2009-04-16 01:45:29
It depended which you brought, the cheap ones always failed after alot of use, the better ones tended to last
DrHazzard
2009-04-16 13:21:43
After using floppies for so long during my "formative" geek years I have grown attached and don't really want to give them up just yet.
CLaRGe
2009-04-21 12:37:00
I still use Floppy Disks at university when I need to hand in code as part of an assignment. I'd use a CD but floppy drives are still more common than CD burners at my university...
EnderMB
2009-04-22 21:37:52
CD/DVD drive is now obsolute like the floppy. Everyone now uses the USB flash drive.
CDR
2009-05-03 06:36:28
flash drives would be pretty expensive to turn in... of course that's what the internet is for ;)
Matthew Whited
2009-05-13 20:43:17
I've still got 25-odd blanks in a drawer. Can't remember the last time I saw a floppy drive however...It dawns on me that best way for the government to keep its secrets safe would be to store them on floppies. Next time they leave one on a train the kids would have no idea what to do with it ;)
Delameko
2009-08-26 17:17:23
When I got a new desktop a few years ago, I got a floppy drive, not because I needed it, but because it cost $20, so there was no good reason not to take it. Never used it since.
Marius
2009-10-13 00:59:51
Sometimes I still have to hit F6 near the beginning of a Windows reinstallation. You get one guess what kind of media it reads drivers from. Without those drivers Windows won't find hard drives to install itself to.
Windows programmer
2009-10-13 01:41:33
Floppy disks remain a really convenient way of writing little bootloaders and kernels in assembly language. Oh wait, *that's* obsolete too :(
Artelius
2009-10-13 11:14:54
+6
A:
Windows Me! The power of being above awful limits! With the perfect blue on my screen!
elbaid
2009-04-15 14:29:20
+1
A:
We have existing servers running on WebLogic 4.5 (not even the last service patch either) and Java 1.1.7. The PAIN!
John Munsch
2009-04-15 14:34:11
+3
A:
Centura Team Developer 1.5.1, circa 1998, which was never officially supported on Windows XP and uses 16-bit ODBC to talk to SQL Server 2008. It's a testament to Microsoft's backward compatibility efforts that it runs at all on Vista 32-bit.
Coder 42
2009-04-15 14:47:49
I'd like to see an editor olympics, wherein a set of basic editing tasks are described, and everyone needs to do what is required and ide/gui/emacs/notepad fans are required to complete these tasks on a basic installation. Versus a good vi guy. You'd lose your ass, @Jeff. Yeah, vi requires an above-room-temperature IQ. But maybe even expecting that is not PC these days.
xcramps
2009-08-26 15:21:24
+1
A:
Turbo C/C++, from Borland.
17 years old and hopelessly standards non-compliant, but I'm using it because my school forces me to.
sykora
2009-04-15 15:20:55
+6
A:
3.5" floppy disks...
I used one the other day when I needed to run a bootable memory test on a computer.
David
2009-04-15 15:54:32
+1
A:
I have a really really old calculator sitting on my desk. It has the roll of paper and everything. Very useful.
Zachary Spencer
2009-04-15 15:57:27
+12
A:
Around 2000, I was using a TRS-80 Model 4P (an ancient Z80A system with floppy drives, expandable to a whopping 128K of memory, which was addressable by bank switching, IIRC) in a vital role in Unix development.
Specifically, I put it in front of the outlet so I wouldn't knock the plug for the Unix system out of the wall when I stretched my feet. It worked very well.
David Thornley
2009-04-15 16:23:39
+2
A:
Solaris.
It doesn't matter what version it is, it's all horrible. And the Solaris servers we have here are completely borked installations, so you can just imagine how much fun I have day to day here.
belgariontheking
2009-04-15 16:46:03
Any system that requires a human to write XML just to get perfectly complete and functional shell code to work should be banned. No wonder they were going under and sold out.
kmarsh
2009-06-12 18:15:17
Sun had a lot of really smart people working for them. Some of the stuff Solaris was able to do is amazing. @belgariontheking, are you a Windows guys, perchance? @kmarch, huh? Shell code, XML, huh?? WTF are you talking about?
xcramps
2009-08-26 15:12:55
@xcramps yes I am a Windows guy for desktops/laptops and for *NIX servers I prefer linux. I have no idea what kmarsh is talking about either.
belgariontheking
2009-08-26 16:25:47
+1
A:
I'm not sure that it "should have been replaced", but I still have my working copy of Brief (the DOS editor) and still us it quite regularly.
Note - I'm referring to the version produced by Underware (the original maker), and NOT the P.O.S. version that Borland put after buying them up - prior to killing it.
I spent a lot of time in the mid-80's learning the macro language, and made a lot of really useful macros for it - and still use many of them today under Windows XP (in the command window).
-R
Huntrods
2009-04-16 01:31:54
I would like to point out that I'm not proficient in Cobol, but I had enough experience from the task to make me not wanting to include it in my resume.
MrValdez
2009-04-16 08:20:38
+4
A:
Microsoft Access 2000. Fortunately soon partly to be replaced by ASP.NET ;)
iar
2009-04-16 08:41:35
+2
A:
HD-DVD player. can't afford a blu-ray now. but upscaling on regular dvd's works great. And I do have 10 HD-DVD titles.
silverArc
2009-04-16 14:48:52
A:
4GL...
We're in an ongoing never ending process to get it all into C#.
Alexander Kahoun
2009-04-16 15:08:47
+3
A:
Java webapps still in Model 1 architecture.
For the uninformed, that means I have a lot of servlets with boatloads of "out.println" calls to generate the HTML.
MattC
2009-04-16 15:12:42
+17
A:
QWERTY.
It should have been replaced long, long ago... the reason I still use it is obvious...
Funnily enough I'm typing this answer in Dvorak because I accidentally switched to Dvorak mode a few minutes ago.
Artelius
2009-04-16 23:59:34
@eyze because qwerty was made to slow you down and because, uh, there are lots of studies that WEREN'T headed by Dvorak that prove it! Wait, nevermind, that stuff is false.
TM
2009-08-26 17:09:48
Just a random example:everytHinG cApitALizeD in tHiS Sentence iS on tHe Home row in qwerty.EvEryTHINg cApITAlIzED IN THIS SENTENcE IS ON THE HOmE rOw IN DvOrAk.Whether or not this translates to a real difference, I can't prove. But with Dvorak at least I know that actual research was behind the design...
Artelius
2009-08-28 10:46:20
The one thing I don't like about Dvorak is all the questions I get about why the 6 keys in the top left corner doesn't spell Dvorak.
Marius
2009-10-13 01:01:38
+1
A:
Delphi 4. Our software still uses it, and it's too much work to retool it in anything else.
It makes you appreciate what you have nowadays. Probably the only thing worse would be older versions of Borland C++ builder, a horrible amalgamation of Delphi and C++.
Snazzer
2009-04-22 00:10:19
+7
A:
The Lynx browser. Good for testing the text flow of web pages, and also good for testing site-usability for impaired people.
anchorpoint
2009-04-22 12:25:08
Lynx is neither obsolete nor embarrassing. When in SysAdmin mode, I insist on having it on all machines, because sooner or later I'll be at a console with X and everything else broken and reading the device driver vendor's documentation... written in HTML.
kmarsh
2009-06-12 18:13:06
Hehe, well last release is over 2 years old and it was initiated in 1992. I'd say it's pretty obsolete for mainstream usage, and embarassingly out of date. But I agree it's a super tool for getting stuff done through console. Found a bit hard to get an SSL-compatible version though, but I managed in the end.
anchorpoint
2009-06-15 15:00:28
Always a good idea to have lynx around, even if it's just for emergencies, it doesn't matter how long it's been since the last update, if it works and it's only there for a minority of situations where the choices are very limited(command line browser? I can think of 4, only 1 of which is likely to be installed on all machines).
scragar
2009-08-26 13:39:36
+27
A:
RCS. Before I check in changes to a "RCS like" repository, I email the whole group with the list of files I modified and see if anyone is also checking in the same files today so we don't overwrite each other's changes. Don't laugh... this isn't funny if you have to do it everyday :..(
Shing Yip
2009-04-28 19:45:33
Wow, seriously? Switching version control systems is one of the easier things to do within an organization.
Ryan McGeary
2009-08-26 13:26:30
Actually, I use RCS on a daily basis without any bad thoughts whatsoever - for backing up configuration files on my machine prior to updates. (Gentoo Linux "dispatch-conf" even does this automatically.) For local-only, one-person-only use, RCS is definitely good enough.
DevSolar
2009-08-26 13:46:17
+1
A:
Flatfile EDI.
eg:
UNB+UNOA:2+AAA+BBBB+080319:1152+111'
The Shipping Industry is still thinking about using XML. Thinking veeeeery slowly.
Damo
2009-05-01 12:33:01
+11
A:
Visual FoxPro 9.0.
I'm disappointed it still exists. Foxpro 9.0 runs on Windows 7! It will never die like Visual Basic 6.0 is still alive.
Pascal Paradis
2009-05-01 12:55:05
+1
A:
Comment on VBScript post above ... (new here, can't comment yet) and the general (ongoing) sorry state of scripting on Windows.
For my occasional scripting needs, I use VBScript, and it is absolutely obsolete. It can't natively communicate with newish .NET stuff without a COM layer - and we fled to .NET to avoid COM. However, like batch files and rain on Saturdays, it's always there. I also use a lot of batch files and, strangely, enjoy it much more than VBScript.
A batch file knows it's obsolete, and revels in it. Batch transcends obsolete to venerability.
PowerShell is theoretically a replacement. All the technical pieces are in place, it's fast and potent ... but few people can stand looking at it long enough to learn it. ("-gt", what were they thinking?).
JScript 8 could be a replacement, but someone forgot that scripting languages ought to be dynamic - Jscript 8 needs compilation as far as I can see.
I'm pushing my team / company to embrace IronPython and DLR in general. You can get your old COM, your newish WMI, your .NET, and get the immediate gratification that "scripting" should provide. I want to script IronPython, moving anything heavy off to C# libs. That's the dream ... the reality is that I know everyone can use JScript / VBScript / batch out of the box. Makes a guy want to switch to Unix.
Precipitous
2009-05-03 06:09:06
Figured I would help you get to the comment threshold. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
Mr. Will
2009-05-13 20:40:23
+1
A:
Still using Fortran 77, and not just running legacy code, but implementing new features. Recently, I integrated with some auto-generated code from MATLAB/Simulink. Many people in the scientific computing realms still use old, but fast languages.
Scottie T
2009-05-13 20:33:59
And they're really fast. Elegant solutions in more "modern" languages still can't keep up. I don't care for Fortran (anymore), but you have to give it it's due. Nothing does math faster. Nothing.
xcramps
2009-08-26 15:27:38
+1
A:
Microsoft SQL Server 2000, though we are slowly migrating to 2005...
Until early last year our Java source was running against JDK 1.3, but I got us up to 1.6.
Mr. Will
2009-05-13 20:42:41
My first reaction was that **WinMain** is the obsolete technology you use!
Beni Cherniavsky-Paskin
2010-05-11 09:51:55
+2
A:
I have an old ENIAC at home that I haven't had a chance to take to Goodwill. I still use it as a highly effective paperweight though.
Garrett
2009-05-13 20:46:33
A:
All of our report summaries and charts are produced using Excel VBA. The reason is because our reports were really crappy, and I wanted to make them better and I didn't know how to write code. So I just started googling VBA code and making reports. Now most of our reports for customers are coming from me.
A:
I myself have always been using the newest technologies as far as I remember, but it was quite a shock when I started working in this "new" company:
Borland C++ 5/6, Visual C++ 6, and most likely some even older ones to follow. Also, applications have to support Windows 98/2000... and no plans to upgrade whatsoever.
Luckily I can use even older Vim to do the actual coding part.
joukokar
2009-05-28 07:45:54
+1
A:
C89. I'm sure if I look for it, I'll find some awful K&R crawling horror lurking somewhere in this pile. Better not go there.
james woodyatt
2009-05-28 08:03:32
A:
Sybase's APT Workbench - a ncurses-like text based user interface to databases ;-)
B0rG
2009-06-12 17:57:50
+4
A:
SMTP. Of course I don't have much choice if I want to send emails, do I? But come on, a standard that uses a goddamn 7-bit character set?
And it wouldn't be far-fetched to add IRC (the RFC doesn't even bother to specify an encoding!) or HTML to the list.
jalf
2009-06-12 18:11:51
A:
Buckle spring keyboard.
Yes, the machine gun keyboard from IBM. Bought a new one with USB connector and additional keys. Love it. Every single keystroke is a tiny pleasure.
Stefano Borini
2009-08-26 13:22:21
I wouldn't call that out of date. With the springiness it's a technology that won't go out of date until we stop using physical input altogether.
tsilb
2009-10-13 01:24:00
+8
A:
My car has a diesel drinking internal combustion engine with pistons driving a crankshaft. Pretty much a slightly modified version of what the first cars used in the 1890's or something.
Oh, and in the toilet we have one of those incandescent light bulbs with a bayonet fitting.
KristoferA - Huagati.com
2009-08-26 13:29:42
+7
A:
XML. This technology is over-engineered. It's too verbose. It's led to numerous unnecessary standards and specifications that waste thousands of man-hours everyday (e.g. WS-*). Out-dated? If not now, it will be soon.
Ryan McGeary
2009-08-26 13:31:54
A:
A bank card without a chip. And even if you have one with a chip, nobody have the device to read it.
Pierre-Alain Vigeant
2009-08-26 13:41:53
+1
A:
Slackware Linux. The whole distribution fits on a single floppy.
I built a home automation system years ago. The computer is a 66 MHz 486DX2 PC with 16 MB of memory. It comes with some special hardware so it's too much trouble to upgrade. Tried new Linux distributions but the machine is not powerful enough to run any of them.
ZZ Coder
2009-08-26 14:03:49
A:
Hummingbird DM 5.1.0.5 which is I believe at least 5 years old now and should be replaced. This is used for holding support documents and legal documents which has to connect to our new CMS. There is an old COM DLL that is used to handle logging in to Hummingbird as well as getting out the data which can include information about the files as well as the binary data itself.
MCMS 2002 which is our old CMS that is being replaced soon. The company just had other things that took the spotlight so the new CMS project has had its schedule revised at least a few times and there has been a couple rounds of training with only a few people getting it twice. Since this has some of the data from the sites we are replacing, there has been work to get an extraction from it done which can be painful.
Both of these are on Windows 2000 servers that are a few years old and can be a bit fussy to use at times.
JB King
2009-08-26 14:04:10
A:
I know some companies which are still using Microsoft Access 97 for their applications. (But they are planning to upgrade to Access 2003 - :-) )
Bernd Ott
2009-08-26 14:08:39
+2
A:
Paint Shop Pro 7
I'm now using it on Linux! The two main features I like:
Line drawing tool: it's the quickest, easiest-to-use one I've ever used. No other program I've tried does this well. Version 8 of PSP changed it to work like Flash/Photoshop where you have to use paths.
Edge preserving smooth: incredible for smoothing out cartoony images. If you have a JPEG image it will essentially remove the artifacts from it. Never found another tool like it.
DisgruntledGoat
2009-08-26 14:27:01
in photoshop and gimp, use the shift key to make a 'line drawing tool'
Shawn Leslie
2010-01-07 16:26:10
@Shawn: It's not the same. It's difficult to describe, you just have to use PSP to see how much better it is.
DisgruntledGoat
2010-01-08 11:15:30
AML is certainly obsolete, but I have somewhat fond memories of using it. ArcIMS: every time I load a county govt website and see that telltale IMS progress bar, I run away screaming.
yalestar
2009-08-26 17:22:57
A:
At work, not my fault :)
- DB2 / zOS / COBOL
- A unicore laptop w/2GB
- .NET 2.0
- VSS 2005
- VS 2003
- VS 2005
- SQL 2000
And sometimes, even... shudder - paper.
tsilb
2009-08-26 14:47:46
+3
A:
Surprised nobody said this already...
Tcl
Our entire testing automation infrastructure is built on Tcl. Tons and tons of libraries, scripts, etc. would all need to be converted if we moved to another language. We're starting to dart our eyes towards Perl, but quickly refocus on Tcl since it's what we have.
Oh, if only we could use a modern scripting language like Python or Ruby. Big corporations move slowly.
Bob Somers
2009-08-26 18:36:28
+3
A:
Java 1.1 to support the Microsoft JVM, for those 40% or so of our customers who refuse to upgrade.
Herms
2009-08-26 18:47:37
A:
MS Access 97! Damn, after several years moved to linux word, I have to go back to this ancient technology in order to maintain an application I made for my uncle during college time :(
silent
2009-08-27 00:26:34
+6
A:
Paint. It still does only what I really need from a graphics program and no more.
MusiGenesis
2009-10-13 00:39:08
+1
A:
COBOL, CICS, and ADABASE :D
Yes, some people still have to program in COBOL
Polaris878
2009-10-13 00:44:21
A:
File server databases. I use a number of them (Access, R:Base, DBISAM (Delphi)).
Larry Lustig
2009-10-13 01:25:13
A:
SourceGear Vault 3.51. We just haven't had time to re-evaulate our source control.
Daniel
2009-10-13 01:28:55
You just removed a git question about an empty git status after a git push. How did you solve this issue? (I was intrigued and looking into it)
VonC
2010-07-24 05:13:43
It was bogus: I had actually committed in another window, so my premise was false. One more push and all was solved.
theschmitzer
2010-07-27 20:54:36
A:
We still have to use CVS at work and there seem to be no plans to upgrade at least to SVN. I find it a hellspawn in combination with NetBeans.
Ondrej Slinták
2010-05-31 08:17:03
A:
I am wondering why noone writes LaTeX, TeX, TeTeX or any of the other variants of this excellent but ancient layout engine :)
I always found it to be the absolutely best tool when you had to make a long text with consistent layout. Even on 2 pages of word/openoffice always messes things up for me, and I spent 10 times as long fiddling with things that doesn't look nice.
Cine
2010-05-31 08:23:13