
Engineering a Repairable World - jrepinc
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/education/engineering-a-repairable-world
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Grumbledour
I feel this is an important topic sadly often overlooked. Repairability is
important but also grants a license to customize your hardware/software and I
feel in the long run, we need more far reaching concepts for our electronics
and computers.

I often think about this regarding software. Most of us find it normal and
reasonable, that older software needs to be updated/replaced. It seems all
right, that Microsoft retires windows 7 for example. Yet, large corporation
might still run decade old mainframes on the back end and nobody notices.
Especially in the last decade, with dwindling hardware improvement, I ask
myself, do we really need new Systems/Software all the time? What does the new
version that needs improved hardware really bring to the table that makes it
superior to the previous one? After all, many people just use the core
functionality which hasn't really changed that much.

I think going forward we need to redefine sustainability in regards to
computing. Of course, as is often the case these days, it's mostly a
redefining of capitalism as a whole from which would follow such
considerations.

~~~
jaclaz
>I ask myself, do we really need new Systems/Software all the time? What does
the new version that needs improved hardware really bring to the table that
makes it superior to the previous one? After all, many people just use the
core functionality which hasn't really changed that much.

Not only that, there is also a limit (talking of interactive software) in
needed speed (and also "features").

I mean, having a file (or more generally information) loading instantly is a
good thing (and it should be as fast as it can be), but when you need to
create content (be it writing a letter, putting together a spreadsheet,
drawing something or even merely inputting data) how much speed is actually
needed?

As an example, in the '90's creating/running a (complex) spreadsheet would
imply to have "automatic calculation" turned off and you had to press F9 from
time to time, or if you prefer, I was (slightly) faster than Excel.

Since - say - the middle of the 2000's this is not anymore needed and the
responsiveness is outspeeding me (this may also mean that I am getting old) on
_any_ system, with _any_ version of Excel including the (venerable) 97 one or
_any_ of the similar spreadsheet programs around, even of relatively low
powered machines.

For Word (or more generally word processors) this happened even earlier, you
have to think at what you are writing, which takes some time, and BTW most
(and by most I think of 95% or more of the users) use a word processor to
write a letter or a report, I don't believe that there is any new possible
feature to be added that would make those letters or reports be written in
less time.

