[cr0sh]

I once worked for a company that let me go because I looked bad on their bottom line and they were looking to sell the company, around 2003. So, severance package in hand, and one week later I had a new position at another company making much more than I was originally.

Anyhow - I was essentially the sole developer of a simple ERP system written in VB6 and using an Access 2003 MDB file for storage. It was being used in-house by most of the company at that point, from billing, to shipping software and patches, to other reporting, CRM, etc. I looked bad to the bottom line because my salary was going entirely into this in-house developed product, that was producing no revenue for the company. I was a literal cost center; I don't blame them for letting me go - it was probably a good business decision...

When I was let go, I was trying to transition to postgresql for the backend (away from the MDB file), and hopefully move the frontend away from VB6 - and make the whole thing a web application in some manner.

They told me when I was let go they told me they were looking into other options to replace the software I had almost single-handedly written to manage the business.

So - I was let go, and the business was sold. Twice. Today, it's part of HP, last I was aware - about 3 years ago. That was about the time that I had to look for a new job, and talked to my former supervisor there (he'd since become VP of his department).

Yep - still using the same old software, with virtually no updates or fixes. Still running on the MDB file. And somehow, it was still all working, nearly 15 years later. I'm amazed, impressed, shocked, and also in complete wonderment how it hasn't fallen over hard since then.

As far as I know - they are still using it. I've been told that both the original company that bought them, then HP (after they bought that company), both looked at the software and wanted to monetize it - everyone who's seen it has been fairly impressed with it, from what I understand. But, because it's so tightly integrated with the business, plus that it was never designed to be modular and salable, has meant that without a major refactor, it can't be easily done.

Honestly, I'm glad it can't - I'd do so many things differently today that I didn't do then (and if done, they could probably sell it as well); it's the kind of code that I know some developer will look at, then want to track me down for a good ol' fashioned murdering - or at least to beat me with a baseball bat.

[user5994461]

That must be the magic of Windows in action. Software still running after 15 years.

I have to do some maintenance or decommissioning of very old apps in an old bank. I find anything Linux and C or C++ related is the worst, because the system libraries themselves are unstable. Applications fail because of .so dependencies breaking, both system libraries and application libraries (themselves forming a tree of dependencies). It can be extremely hard to rebuild and relink the software with the whole chain of dependencies for the current platform.

Linux executables die along major OS releases every few years, but Windows binaries can keep working for more than a decade easily.

[jgalt212]

are there no fat binaries in linux? or are they just not used?

[bgun]

Reminds me of a recent HN post about the uncanny survival of MS Access https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21401198

[cr0sh]

I probably posted to that one as well...

[S3raph]

Great story, I don't want to know the number of companies that run business critical stuff on excel vba macros + access DB some guy wrote 15 years ago.

[qubex]

My family business was very happily centralised on IBM’s (admittedly legacy) ADB package running on an ultra-reliable AS/400 (later iSeries).

SAP was a disaster.