ancient software

The year is 2560. Most software that people use is ancient - hundreds of years old with no changes except for a possible bug fix every 50 years or so. Use a word processor that has not been updated in 150 years (but is bug free)? Use an operating system that is as stable, secure, and unchanging as a cut diamond? You bet! Sure there will be new software written, and eventually it will either become ancient and rock solid, or fall into disuse.

Yes, this might be a crazy idea, but for some types of software it makes sense. Even with programming languages: one of the things that I like about Common Lisp is the maturity of the language and standard library. Smalltalk is another good example of an older and more stable language. I would like to see languages like Ruby, Java, and Python also stabalize at the language and core library level (and what is up with removing mapping functions from Python?) Oh, and how about freezing Word(tm) except for bug fixes?

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