Comment by dgb23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dgb23 | Hacker News Reader

> The point is, the things we use to build applications are in a constant state of evolution and change.

Evolution and change are great!

The article misses a deeper issue though.

There is tech that evolves with breakage (PHP, large parts of the JS ecosystem etc.) and tech that evolves with compatible change (Go, Java, Clojure etc.)

There shouldn’t be anything wrong with starting on v(N-1). But there is something fundamentally wrong if vN breaks you.

Programmers get anxious about that for very good reasons. We already have enough work to do! Breaking changes looming over our heads is not something we like having to worry about.

I don’t know whether Next13 will or will not break Next12 code. But that’s besides the general point.

Don’t embrace “old” tech! Embrace _stable_ tech.

This. So much this. It's fine to not use the latest version, but use a supported version. If the version is EOL, don't use it. Even if you have backports. Otherwise you will inevitably run into issues where the system is insecure by-design. I can't ssh into half the servers because I have to first enable insecure algorithms, the PHP version is almost old enough to drink, and the Debian mirrors don't even serve this version anymore.

Sure, the system is stable. Until somebody finds it, then it can be a threat to the entire network.

I moved to Windows 10 for my MMO client, and I brought the cl.exe compiler with me and now I need to call "set __COMPAT_LAYER=WIN7RTM" before I run the game othervise file operations randomly fail.

It messes with my head, and is fundamentally discouranging.

Also I cannot distribute that compiler for legal reasons, so I need to add another compiler to my project delaying it many months.

Linux has other problems, like 32-bit vs. 64-bit.

It seems to me we're in a vortex of complexity that we will never escape, fundamentally fueled by peak lithography.

Seriously considering going back to the C64.

> Don’t embrace “old” tech! Embrace _stable_ tech.

This is why I used Debian Linux.

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