Comment by HeyLaughingBoy
14 days ago
I'd ask the opposite question. Why would they not use Outlook and instead use something like Alpine or Mutt? This is 2026, you know.
14 days ago
I'd ask the opposite question. Why would they not use Outlook and instead use something like Alpine or Mutt? This is 2026, you know.
Is this incident not reason enough? Astronauts in space are needing remote support to debug it, and taking up priceless mission time.
Sure, but bespoke software isn't necessarily going to be more reliable.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
> The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they’ve been fixed.
This quote is completely and totally irrelevant. Nobody is saying they should code a new Outlook. If they did code something, it would be significantly smaller in scope and rigorously tested like spacebound programs in the past were. "New space-engineering-grade code created with actual engineering practices" is absolutely going to be more reliable than "old bloated commercial shitware". But I guess software engineering is a lost art, so it can't be helped.
6 replies →
Alpine and mutt are about as far from bespoke as it gets. Both are far less likely to suffer from bugs than outlook.
Alpine and Mutt are about 20 and 30 years old, respectively.
And that problem would go away with a 30 year-old solution?
That problem would be much less likely with a minimalist battle tested OSS solution whose maintainers and users have decidedly different priorities than those governing something like outlook or even thunderbird.
The higher the stakes the more valuable minimalism becomes.