I just traveled back in time - software style

Compton_effect

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I just spent 2 hours getting to know a Austrian software package the company is using.
The Application looks like it was written in C++ for Windows XP.
And the Website looks like it was designed in 2001.

Thing is - we have the newest version - released 3 days ago. And the Website is up-to date.
But the style and look and feel dates from the early 2000's.
And it is used by heavy industry in 42 countries world wide.:wtf:

10/10 for consistency, but really?!
 
Yep i've seen software that is always updated, but the website is from the stone age.
 
if they are profitable, the software does the job, and the customers are happy, why f*** with it ?

Here is an interesting perspective : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27407502

Game of Thrones author George RR Martin has explained why he does all his writing on an obsolete disk operating system (DOS) computer - because it does not correct his spelling.

He said he did not want a modern PC that amended his writing as he typed.

The writer of the books on which the TV series is based first revealed he used the archaic system in 2011.

Speaking on US chat show Conan on Tuesday, he said he kept a second computer for browsing the internet.

He said he never feared a virus infecting his computer and deleting his work because he had a "secret weapon".

Martin added: "I actually like it, it does what I want a word-processing programme to do and it doesn't do anything else. I don't want any help, you know?

"I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower case letter and it becomes a capital. I don't want a capital. If I'd wanted a capital, I'd have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key. Stop fixing it."

'Dinosaur'

He said: "I actually have two computers. I have the computer that I browse the internet with, that I get my email on and I do my taxes on. Then I have my writing computer, which is a DOS machine not connected to the internet. Remember DOS? I use WordStar 4.0 as my word-processing system."

And he said that he hated spell-checking programmes because they were unlikely to recognise a lot of the words in a fantasy novel.

In a blogpost in 2011, he intimated that he considered himself a "man of the 20th Century, not the 21st" and a "dinosaur" because, while he had been using a computer for 20 years by that point, he was still using the outdated system to write.

He called it the "Duesenberg of word-processing software (very old, but unsurpassed)", referring to the long-since dead American car manufacturer.

And he said he personally was a user of neither Facebook, nor Twitter at that time. Instead, he allowed a friend to post on the sites on his behalf.

Disk operating system computers were popular in the 1980s and early 1990s.

And the system remained in widespread use up to around the turn of the century - but some already considered it outdated by the time Martin's first instalment in the series was published in 1996.
 
Rofl. For once i agree with you :P

I agree. The software is absolutely fit-for-purpose. But we thought we had a ancient version of it and went looking for the newest. Turns out if auto updates.

I do know why though. I saw it in mining. Those guys blow holes in the ground and take out ore. That is it - they are cowboys. You do not mess with the stuff they are using. If you do you are in for a world of hurt when it comes to user acceptance. The only time they replace anything is if it is broke or there is something better.
 
Some of the software our company developed was written in the late 90s. It looks like it was (perhaps not 90s but at least 2000s), but it's the most popular of its type in the country, and is used in another 10+ countries in Africa, and a few in the Middle East.
Isn't it perhaps a case of if the software works as it should then it's at least a step in the right direction?
 
Some of the software our company developed was written in the late 90s. It looks like it was (perhaps not 90s but at least 2000s), but it's the most popular of its type in the country, and is used in another 10+ countries in Africa, and a few in the Middle East.
Isn't it perhaps a case of if the software works as it should then it's at least a step in the right direction?
 
Some of the software our company developed was written in the late 90s. It looks like it was (perhaps not 90s but at least 2000s), but it's the most popular of its type in the country, and is used in another 10+ countries in Africa, and a few in the Middle East.
Isn't it perhaps a case of if the software works as it should then it's at least a step in the right direction?

our legacy app was written in 1990 :P im in the process of rewriting it all.
 
These days you are more likely to get displays of resolution 1366x768. Then they add a freaking ribbon and the taskbar can't autohide. 768p becomes 600p for the window. Simplified toolbars and menus that need more action to invoke.

Progress...
 
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