I’m talking about programs that can’t be improved no matter what. They do exactly what they’re supposed to and will never be changed.
It’ll probably have to be something small, like cd or pwd, but does such a program exist?
7zip?
Many might disagree, but imo vim is the perfect text editor for a command line interface. It’s just so simpel and does exactly what I need it to do without doing anything unnecessary
neovim is a drop in replacement for vim that fixes the issues that bother me with vim
There was a moment in time where maybe it was qmail:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qmail
Ten years after the launch of qmail 1.0, and at a time when more than a million of the Internet’s SMTP servers ran either qmail or netqmail, only four known bugs had been found in the qmail 1.0 releases, and no security issues.
More on how it was accomplished:
https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/01/17/some-thoughts-on-security-after-ten-years-of-qmail-1-0/
I don’t think such thing as perfect software exist, only abandoned software. If the environment changes, then the software needs changes too.
Or a new software.
Or a rewrite in Rust.
Same features, more bugs? Nah.
Pretty certain cd and pwd have changed over the years. The kernel hasn’t remained the same so the commands that use it wont and now we have faster methods to do various things like getting file data the commands that depend on it will change. Less quickly than something that is still gaining features but bit rot is a very real effect since every single part of software is in constant flux.
Honestly, it all starts going to shite after “hello world.”
Hahahahah
Shouldn’t it be “Hello world.”?
What does perfect hello world even mean? It can be realized in many ways and none is the best way.
Computers can’t even greet you in the real world. Its like some kind of sick joke.
“Dance, clanker! Dance!”
Is there a perfect building?
Probably not, since they exist in an environment — which is constantly changing — and are used by people — whose needs are constantly changing.
The same is true of software. Yes, programs consist of math which has objective qualities. But in order to execute in the physical world, they have to make certain assumptions which can always be invalidated.
Consider fast inverse sqrt: maybe perfect, for the time, for specific uses, on specific hardware? Probably not perfect for today.
WinRAR free version
You may be interested by this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_verification.
Prominent examples of verified software systems include the CompCert verified C compiler and the seL4 high-assurance operating system kernel.
Of course: https://github.com/kelseyhightower/nocode
Ha. I still have an open PR on that.
Automotive engine control computers.
They just work, for decades and millions of miles.
Nope.
I’ve thought about this before, and it gave me an interesting thought process: AI can’t ever be good at doing a large project.
It has a hard limit. Not only is it not as good as us, the best it can ever do is as good as us, and we’re not even good at it. That’s all it can be trained on! Our garbage code lol
No; since every user defines the perfect program differently. Which should be the default behaviour(s)?
You cannot criticize a good knife by asking why it’s not a hammer.
A hammer is a completely different tool, but different defaults in a single program are not.
Point is there’s no objective standard for “perfect”
But I can critisize it for having only one sharp edge instead of 2. Or for being too short or too long. Or for having a handle that’s not shaped well for my hand. (That last metaphor is probably the correct one for the sentiment I’m going for.)
The answer remains, this tool is not flawed, it’s just not the one you want.
Vim could be feature-complete and formally verified and I’m still using Xed.
Software is always an ongoing conversation.
Pkzip version 2.04g
