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The xkcd about the one unpaid open source contributor doesn't capture the gravity of the situation.

We're dependent on systems and software written in the late 70s and 80s written by people who are retired or dead. It's much worse than that cartoon made it seem.
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83f3d191... 2y ago

The number of programmers I see learning JavaScript and then COBOL or FORTRAN is kind of crazy. Particular for traditional banking positions where they're in the process of modernizing but just want to wrap their old code in a compatibility layer.

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nobody 2y ago

We have devices in the field running DOS. Industrial machines. Mostly written in C, but some in PASCAL. My colleague did FORTRAN when he started.

So many young devs don't even realize their modern CPU still has x86 real mode. That essentially they're still running an 8086 scaled to unbelievable levels.

I've seen some really encouraging stuff online with young devs going back and learning assembly, hacking hardware, and really getting to know how their machines work. I just hope it's enough. I'm willing to bet money there's parts of Windows that hasn't been touched in 30+ years. Three fragility of it all bothers me. Especially when you still work in systems programming and you see the cracks.