[beatgammit]

There are plenty of Unix systems out there, such as AIX (and arguably FreeBSD, though it's not certified), that are derived from and could be called UNIX. These systems are still maintained today and generally have the philosophy of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And there's definitely some sense in that, and I wish more software projects followed that philosophy.

If you take C code from K&R C, it'll likely still compile with current C compilers. Likewise, I'm sure most C projects from the 80s still compile with current compilers, perhaps with minor changes.

FreeBSD often chooses to improve existing tools instead of replacing them, so it would look more familiar to an old Unix expert than Linux, and there's some solid logic to that.

I think it's a little sad that we have these big disruptive changes like Python 2 -> 3, when Python 2 still works fine and can still be improved without breaking backwards compatibility. Honestly, I think it makes sense to have disruptive changes like that be treated as a new language instead of completely dropping support. I like how the Rest project is approaching it with building compatibility for older versions of the language into current compilers, so you can get the best of backwards compat and modern changes.