What is the expected lifetime of code we ship?

[Achim Gratz]

Hal Murray via devel writes:
> Suppose we release some code.  Assume it is bug free so users are happy.

You can drop that assumption without any change to the outcome.

> How long do we expect it to run correctly?

The question really is: What should we do when we know it stops running
correctly and how does the program learn that?

> Would we be happy with 67 years from the build date?

That doesn't really matter, except that larger n is a better assurance
that you won't personally have to deal with any fallout.  In any case,
we need some cooperation from the environment we build and run on in
order to gain some reference date that we can use since it's impossible
to get a trustable absolute reference from within the code.

> Do we know the limitations?

I don't think so.  I believe we've had a similar discussion before and
at that time I said that shooting for something well over a century
might be a good goal.  Also, documenting the assumptions we make about
the cooperation (or lack thereof) from the environment we run in is a
must, because otherwise our claims are meaningless.


Regards,
Achim.
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