IEEE Spectrum July, 2007 - Cover4

REFLECTIONS
By Robert W. Lucky

The other day I glanced wistmay lose valuable data. Both
fully at the new desktop comstart-up and shutdown take
puters in the electronics store.
forever, and in between the
The new computers weren't
computer is sluggish, seemmuch faster than my old one,
ingly disdainful of anything
the hard drives were only a
I want to do.
little larger, and there wasn't
I don't think this morass
much else in the way of hardis entirely my fault. My comware that I might use to ratioputer bears a lot of the blame,
nalize a purchase. Why, then,
too. Years ago I wrote one of
did I want one anyway?
these essays musing about
In the past, the hardware
whether people turned off
was justification enough. It
their computers at night when
got better so fast that I would
they went to bed. I confessed
lament the value that was lost
that because of my childduring my drive home from
hood training I felt compelled
the store. I imagined that
to turn mine off. I was surI could hear the computer
prised to get a lot of mail saysizzling into obsolescence,
ing how silly my compulsion
right there in the backseat
was. Ever since then, I've left
of my car. I couldn't counteit on overnight, but now I'm
nance the thought of going
reconsidering the wisdom of
back to the store the next
this practice.
day, for fear that I would see
The other night I snuck up
a big discount on the obsolete model that I had just been such on my computer in the dark. (You have to be real quiet, so it
a chump to buy.
doesn't know you're there.) The screen was dark, of course, but
Today, Moore's Law is still at work, increasing the scale I could see the disk-access light blinking, as well as the indicator
of integration relentlessly, but something has happened to its of Internet activity. What could it be doing, I wondered. With a
effectiveness. Density of integration keeps increasing, but not small noise, I gave away my presence, and suddenly the indicator
clock speed. It used to be easy to be shamed into needing a new lights blinked off. The computer feigned innocence, but I'm sure
computer, because there was that one big number in gigahertz that numbers of incomprehensible DLLs, undetected cookies,
out there on the display that told you how pitifully slow your and devious spies were growing there under cover of darkness.
old computer was.
The registry in my computer is beyond repair. I can't go
Now there is an entirely different reason to buy a new com- there anymore. My only hope is to start over, and that's why I
puter: software rot. My old computer, once mainly a good friend- yearn for a new, clean computer. I think, though, that the comonly occasionally an enemy-has simply become a stranger. puter vendors are making a mistake in their advertising. The
I have no idea what programs and data are in there anymore. All descriptions in the stores shout out about all the software that
that beautiful technology in the computer of which I have been is packaged with the computer. I don't want any of it. Mostly
so proud has succumbed to an ordinary rule of life-its closets it's lobotomized trial stuff that they want to entice you to buy
and drawers are filled with stuff I never use. This can probably or upgrade later, anyway. What they really should proclaim is:
be proved using queuing theory, but I take it as an axiom right "This computer comes with absolutely nothing except the bare
up there with umbrellas disappearing into the fourth dimension operating system!" Maybe there should be a green environmenand paper clips mating in the dark.
tal sticker that certifies system cleanliness.
So my old computer is filled with stuff I don't remember
On the other hand, maybe this is a plot. The industry needs
putting there. Occasionally I try to remove something and get to sell new computers to everyone every few years. If clock
a message like, "Other programs may use this file: are you sure speed isn't going to do it, what else is there? Ah, but here we
you want to delete this?" Well, if you put it that way, what can I have an answer: software rot!
n
say? When the computer boots up, I hear the beeps from things
it couldn't execute, and when I shut it down, it warns me about ROBERT W. LUCKY (IEEE Fellow), now retired, was vice president for applied
closing programs I've never heard of, that if terminated early, research at Telcordia Technology in Red Bank, N.J. (rlucky@telcordia.com).

IEEE Spectrum | July 2007 | NA

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Computer Rot

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum July, 2007