Dead end tools and technologies you wished you hadn't bothered with

[VectraMan]

MS Paperclip. Just as I figured out how to make maximum productive use out of that guy... he vanished.

I once used the MS Agent API to incorporate the paperclip and his friends into an application. I hate to think how many now defunct Microsoft APIs I've had to learn and use over the years.

[Gentile]

Old thread is old!

FWIW, the dead end technology from my own past that sticks out for me is Pascal (which is what we used at Uni years ago). I distinctly remember my tutor telling me I had been, and I quote, a "waste of money", when I decided to accept a job out in the real world rather than spend yet another year programming with that crap. I almost felt sorry for him, seven years later when I was working as a Lead Developer out in industry, when he had to come and see me to ask if he could get some of his current students placed with my team for the Summer "for the invaluable experience that working in the real world can provide". Almost. And yes, I did take his students in: it wasn't their fault their teacher was a prize numpty.

[darrenb]

I once used the MS Agent API to incorporate the paperclip and his friends into an application.

He had friends? Man all those years together and he never told me!

[Spacecadet]

I once used the MS Agent API to incorporate the paperclip and his friends into an application. I hate to think how many now defunct Microsoft APIs I've had to learn and use over the years.

The hard thing about some APIs is how badly they are documented. You can waste hours prodding away at methods trying to figure how what the hell they're doing

[Paddy]

[Doggy Styles]

Are Ada and Coral still about? We used them for military software back in the 1980s.

[Paddy]

And all that stuff I know about thermionic valves and amplifiers.

Wasted.

Oh.

They're coming back at ridiculously inflated prices.

.

Ok.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Valves will give a true sine wave amplification. BTW during the cold war, Russian MIGs used valve equipment because if the US used EMP-producing nuclear bombs; micro electronics would be knocked out.

[Bunk]

Poet was a good one for me, German Java OO DB mapping tool, pile of absolute turd. Now we are all slaves to Hibernate which is another pile of turd.

Isn't that usually the case though, we just swap an old turd for a shiny new one. Then the shininess wears off and we find a new turd. Ad infinitum.

[Gibbon]

Are Ada and Coral still about? We used them for military software back in the 1980s.

Ada , very much so, in most of RR aero jet engines. EFA, Tornado, Chinook, Lynx, as well.

Haven't seen Coral for years.

[MarillionFan]

Good old Crystal Reports for me. Started using it sometime in the 1990s & it's still around now.

Crystal + ITSM
Crystal + CRM
Crystal + ERP

I still use it for prototyping & testing datawarehouses I design & it's made sure I've never been benched.