Legacy Software Codebases

Commenters discuss how many software technologies, languages, frameworks, and enterprise codebases are decades old yet still widely used, emphasizing the persistence and relevance of aging tech stacks.

➡️ Stable 0.5x Programming Languages
3,076
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#6273
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
2
2008
17
2009
31
2010
46
2011
74
2012
88
2013
104
2014
119
2015
144
2016
187
2017
165
2018
162
2019
201
2020
253
2021
278
2022
294
2023
325
2024
269
2025
293
2026
26

Keywords

GAP IT JS HEAD ilyabirman.net OBS TurboPascal MIME GMT ManyCam 20 years 20 software years ago ago tech years old old technologies 2005

Sample Comments

grinich Jan 17, 2017 View on HN

They probably work with software written 8-9 years ago, though!

jamal-kumar Jun 6, 2024 View on HN

You'd be surprised how many enterprises have been basically running the same codebase since the 90s

bruce511 Dec 3, 2021 View on HN

Prepare to be impressed!All the following are still actively using code that I'd more than 20 years old;Gnu user tools, as used in Gnu Linux. Linux kernel. Pretty much all databases. (sqlite for example is 21 years old). Much of Windows, and Ms office.Not to mention mountains of my own code, still in production. 20 years is nothing in coding terms.Most developrs I know are small or single, and have one or two products they've been working on for over 20 years.

brcmthrowaway Dec 23, 2024 View on HN

Isnt this tech 20 years old at this point?

andrewbinstock Dec 17, 2019 View on HN

Fairly old article. A lot has happened since then with these technologies.

fennekin Feb 11, 2023 View on HN

it's already outdated when startups didn't use lisp and freebsd anymore

progre May 2, 2020 View on HN

The language is 19 years old, it's not new.

treesknees Sep 16, 2023 View on HN

“half a decade” is practically yesterday in most codebases.

elif Apr 18, 2025 View on HN

Yea but GCP was state of the art 20 years ago, php+perl was already crufty

Zetobal Dec 29, 2023 View on HN

That's more like a reminder the functionality and binaries were there for the last 20 years...