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by romwell 2265 days ago
You can say that about anything we do.

However, at my previous job I integrated an LFBGS[1] implementation into our production code.

That was written in the early 80s in Fortran '77.

The code outlived all hardware that it ran on when it was first written (we ran it on an OpenMP cluster for a scientific-computing problem related to lithographic mask optimization), if not its authors.

It will continue to exist, and run, for a very long time.

Sure, all software is ephemeral. But as you say so, you probably used SciPy/NumPy. Deep inside, there's an implementation of LAPACK/BLAS doing the heavy lifting for you[2]. It started in 1979, and is still kicking.

(And it's still in FORTRAN)

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited-memory_BFGS

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Linear_Algebra_Subprogra...

1 comments

Wow, I'm actually using some of the C++ code based off of MINPACK for one of our current projects at work. It is quite humbling to realise this dates back so far.