25 Oct
1999
25 Oct
'99
6:34 p.m.
On Mon, 25 Oct 1999 CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com wrote:
Tim, I think "legacy" is certainly kinder and gentler. It also has a
certain charm about it. There is another term that the dictionery
browsers might check out, and that is obsolescent - a rather more
transient (and accurately descriptive) status.
>Sure, if
the old stuff works, why change? (Even if it -is- obsolete!)
>It does indeed make sense.
I can honestly say that is where you and I differ
greatly: the definition
of "obsolete."
One of my all-time favorite .sig lines (I forget whose it was) said:
" Don't think of it as a `new' computer, think of it as `obsolete-ready'
"
While collectors may argue about "obsolete" - a term, that to my ears,
smacks of PC-clone salesman-speak - in the world of business
and industrial computing, platforms that are old and well-established
are called "legacy systems". It's generally acknowledged that if a
system does its job well and reliably, it is "legacy"; the mark of a
non-legacy system is that it is under constant development, crashes often,
and doesn't fill its design specs. Of course, here I'm talking about more than
hardware, and more than
hardware+software, but how a system fits into the real world and performs
a useful function.
Exactly!
- don
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
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