but so what. It's likely not to be useful for much other than to prove a point. Too bad the authors couldn't spend their time on something useful instead.

"Try as we might, we just can't manage to get you people to migrate to more modern hardware"

"You people"? You really ought to consider working WITH users instead of making them into the enemy

Ah. My misunderstanding. but... Rather than make perfectly good hardware useless why not just leave the code and not improve it? There are still lots of obsolete cards out there. People with less money than you could use them. This strikes me as a selfish and ill thought out decision.

Sorry. Your statements are untrue and very short sighted.

"PVR-350 hasn't been sold for over half a decade"
It's available for sale on Amazon right now.

"people who aren't so cheap as to be unwilling to spend $20 on a video card"
Fine Mr. big spender. You send me the money and I'll buy something nicer.
I have something that works fine now. Why should I spend money to please you?

You said the code was "frozen and unchanging"
Therefore it's not costing anything to maintain. Then just leave it.

My cable company still sends me regular analog tv signals like they have for decades.

You really should learn punctuation. It's hard to even understand what you're trying to say here. "you can get a much newer card with a bunch off new features that will be supported for years to come for less than $10" Sure, YOU pay for the new card, and the effort to install it. "it's that much more code that has to be maintained". If the extra code required maintenance I would agree. Why would it? The hardware is unchanged.

I use old hardware for things like MythTV. This "old cruft" is still being used. I'd like to know why support for the old stuff is much of a burden. It should be pretty much frozen and unchanging. Seems like it should require almost no effort.

Why wasn't this vetted before being posted? I have to write that AI to screen this felgercarb out and quit reading slashdot

The problem with C strings is the same problem everyone has with C and assembler. It requires you to be absolutely competent. If you're not it does nothing to catch your mistakes. Blaming the current problems other people's "poor choices" is just rubbish.

The vulnerabilities to specially crafted attacks aren't mistakes. They were design choices that were correct given the knowledge the designers had at the time. Times have changed and nobody wants to pay to redo the code. I can just as easily craft a stack overflow using length type strings.

The author is short sighted or is deliberately making up something controversial to gain attention. In either case slashdot will you please ignore flag him?

I've actually made only one of the many adjustments the author claims "pc gamers" want. That adjustment wasn't voluntary. I had to make it to get the game to play. The author is portraying everyone as being like he is without any research to back up his statements. It makes exciting commentary though. I grade this journalism C-

>They hope to quickly build high-speed broadband networks in communities with low unemployment and heavy demand for such services So they're getting into the telecom business? And they expect the people they will compete with to build it for them? I smell agenda... uh uh... money... uh uh... opportunity! Yeah! That's it.

In this semester's course on journalism we'll learn a new technique. Instead of saying "is xxx dead?", like you did in Blogging 101, you'll learn how to reword it. We'll learn how to claim both that xxx is dead and we'll learn how to pick someone to blame it on! Controversy is always good, even when meaningless.

mysql will let you choose a storage mechanism that doesn't pay the overhead of ACID. Sounds like the same old tired **** I've heard over and over. "Just rewrite xxx using xxx and it will solve all the problems." Sorry dude, it's a difficult problem and there aren't any easy answers.

Mod up! He needed something to write about so he manufactured something. He did a variation of the journalism 101 "Is xxx dead" story.

In spite of what certain yahoos, who might even pay you not to go to college, there is a world beyond computers. You may need math, physics, psychology, and politics. You still have to deal with people to get and keep a job. Knowing something about what the software is used for will help