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A comment on Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations ... by a_e_k on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:30AM (#26487301)
Freezing and archiving the VMs used to build a particular release is also a pretty nice trick.

It comes in very handy for those rare times when a major customer that (for some reason) insists on sticking with an ancient, obsolete version of your software desperately needs a critical fix.

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Re:Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations ... by Psychlist on Thursday March 18, 2021 @11:34PM (#26509944)
> Freezing and archiving the VMs used to build a particular release is also a pretty nice trick.

An essential trick if you have long-lasting products. I've been able to (and asked to!) make fixes in ~2015 to code that was written in Turbo Pascal 6. With firmware for embedded devices it's more necessary and often also harder, because often the hardware to flash the firmware doesn't work with new computers. Or you end up with a chain of USB-Serial adapter to serial-to-weird adapter to "programmer board" to actual device... but I knew that when I carefully packed everything into an antistatic bag 10 years ago :)

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