Software Preservation

Grady Booch, over at the handbook of software architecture makes a good point of why preserving classic software systems for future generations is important. There is a storyline behind every system. Within this story lies an endless supply of rationale behind tricky technological problems. Of course, the rationale behind doing such and such with some software component would probably be worth something to some developer in the future. The how probably isn't as important, although it might be. Everything should be preserved as best as possible.

It might be difficult to say what might happen if the software of today isn't preserved for future generations. But what harm could be done if every meaningful software system were preserved for the future? There is probably a mountain of historical data that exists today that is of no particular use besides self-interest. At least it has no use yet. The only thing that is certain is that we'll never know if it proved to be worth-while if we don't do it today.

This got me thinking about software that isn't that old. Maybe a few years old. What if I as a developer worked on it but it was no longer of particular use to anyone else, would it be worth preserving? I think so. I've had countless times where I just thought of something I did to solve a similar problem in a older project. Trac really helps here. I just launched Trac and sure enough, I was able to find what I needed.