Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
1940
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Posted - 2012.10.18 08:05:00 -
[2] - Quote
Peter Powers wrote:
an application that is no longer maintained does only add value on the surface. its balast to everyone else,
and i prefer CCP to modernize stuff, especially after they gave every more than enough time to adopt the new keys.
An application that is still used is still adding value even if it's outdated.
Why? Because expecially in legacy products like EvE, the beginning pioneering phase is over, those who stay are long term players. Developing applications is like playing the MMO: the first time it's a challenge, a fresh initiative, even a race on who can create the: "did not know it was possible to do that" applications.
Now, 0.0 systems are as stale and discovered as hi sec and the same applies to application. There's much less incentive to write something new when the fun and challenges to do it have all been explored and made routine.
The only thing that could push me to write a new app is CCP finally releasing a damn real time markets data feed.
ArenaNET did it since beta and their game is supporting 4+ times as many players, it's not impossible.
So, go and reinvent warm water and the YAWN umpteenth inventory or trading profit app yourself, it's BORING, it's been done 50 times.
EvE is full of close to perfect apps that have worked for years, there's a reason why they say "don't fix what's not broken".
Peter Powers wrote:
its not CCP's fault if people are abandoning the software they launched. (and its a good reason why such software should be opensource anyways ;)
As for people abandoning software: we freeware SW developers write apps for ourselves and then decide to share them.
Developing software takes weeks, weeks off our spare time.
It's not our fault if other companies work to keep backward compatibility and CCP does not.
No, giving NN months to change stuff is not the same as keeping backward compatibility, because it's not breaking news that people have their lives, people stop playing games, people find a new job etc.
Not dealing with this is the fault and it's not a freeware developer fault.
APIs exist also to develop consistent software.
Whole generations of code I developed made use of COM / ActiveX and today, after 10 years they still work despite we are "centuries" away from that now. That was a (cumbersome) "API" that delivered.
The whole "web services", "XML" etc. technologies were born to help interoperability but also backward compatibility.
They pushed programmers to invest and use those technologies (imposing overhead) yet we still fail to keep compatibility?
Peter Powers wrote:
and its a good reason why such software should be opensource anyways
Most legacy EvE apps are open source. That means NOTHING.
Of all the dozens EvE apps I used, only 2 of them have been taken over.
Legacy apps use surpassed technology, are hard to recompile, often written for personal use on an immediate need (and thus no documentation, hurried spaghetti coding). Finally, many of them use some commercial components that the original developer purchased for his other works.
The application (1 of the 2 I know) I have taken over (EvEIncomeAnalyzer) took longer to find a way to recompile it. If it used commercial components, no way I'd have spent $500 to purchase them .
It was written for .net 2.0 with now outdated and contrived code.
It had zero documentation, source code had some comments but only on few obscure things, not about explaining what pieces did what.
So yes, old software it's open source but open source does not mean it'll find a nerd whose only reason to live is to revive defunct spaghetti code.
So yes, 80% of the legacy apps are open source and nobody cares to touch them with a stick, your brilliant reasoning failed.
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