Comments on: Sorry but the game does not build anymore It is an approach that has advantages and disadvantages. In the environment I was working in the disadvantages were (mostly) mitigated. For us an important issue was that we worked on a number of distinct projects at the same time but often shared code between them. So by careful effort you could break multiple builds with a single commit. Allowing projects to build straight from a fresh checkout made automated build testing trivial. In our case all it took was a short bash script executed by cron each night. It is an approach that has advantages and disadvantages. In the environment I was working in the disadvantages were (mostly) mitigated. For us an important issue was that we worked on a number of distinct projects at the same time but often shared code between them. So by careful effort you could break multiple builds with a single commit. Allowing projects to build straight from a fresh checkout made automated build testing trivial. In our case all it took was a short bash script executed by cron each night.

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By: Fabrice Lété/2011/05/05/sorry-but-the-game-does-not-build-anymore/#comment-3666 Fabrice Lété Fri, 06 May 2011 20:00:22 +0000 link), so we are safe.

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By: bowie/2011/05/05/sorry-but-the-game-does-not-build-anymore/#comment-3656 bowie Fri, 06 May 2011 10:22:02 +0000 A very good idea, and that will obviously help with quickly recovering a running version. But the part about updating it to the latest improvements and finding people who remember how it all worked remains. A very good idea, and that will obviously help with quickly recovering a running version. But the part about updating it to the latest improvements and finding people who remember how it all worked remains.

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By: Fabrice Lété/2011/05/05/sorry-but-the-game-does-not-build-anymore/#comment-3647 Fabrice Lété Thu, 05 May 2011 21:08:43 +0000 “They Write the Right Stuff”.

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By: Arseny Kapoulkine/2011/05/05/sorry-but-the-game-does-not-build-anymore/#comment-3640 Arseny Kapoulkine Thu, 05 May 2011 17:36:44 +0000 20+ years ago I did a short stint in the aerospace industry, I witnessed an older project being un-archived for a fix, the bug at the time was threatening to ground a lot of 737's, so it was a big deal. Everything came out of the archived including development hardware, there was no attempt to upgrade development machines/compilers, they used the built in continuous tape drives on the HP workstations, they still burned the ROM's via paper tape. In fact the biggest issues were related to people not knowing how to use the older hardware. That's really what it takes to archive something, you need to freeze as much of the state as possible, but even with that level of archival, what was lost was the knowledge of how the development in that era was done. No archival is perfect, you just do the best you can and deal with the consequences later. 20+ years ago I did a short stint in the aerospace industry, I witnessed an older project being un-archived for a fix, the bug at the time was threatening to ground a lot of 737′s, so it was a big deal.
Everything came out of the archived including development hardware, there was no attempt to upgrade development machines/compilers, they used the built in continuous tape drives on the HP workstations, they still burned the ROM’s via paper tape. In fact the biggest issues were related to people not knowing how to use the older hardware.
That’s really what it takes to archive something, you need to freeze as much of the state as possible, but even with that level of archival, what was lost was the knowledge of how the development in that era was done.
No archival is perfect, you just do the best you can and deal with the consequences later.

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