The most durable tech is boring, old, and everywhere
- Reference: 1767172989
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/31/long_lived_tech/
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Which reminds me, mainframes are still alive and well too. Banking, insurance, governments, inventory management – all the same places you'll find COBOL, you'll find mainframes as well.
None of that is as sexy as the latest AI program or the newest cloud-native computing release, but old dogs with their old tricks still have useful work to perform.
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All of which made me wonder what other technologies are likely to still be in use 50 or more years after they were first released. Here are the ones my friends and I came up with.
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First, though, I want to point out that the current standard, COBOL 2023, is very different from the COBOL that [4]Admiral Grace Hopper helped create . The same is true of mainframes. The first IBM mainframe, 1952's 701, and even 1965's IBM/360, which became COBOL's top platform, don't look much at all like today's [5]IBM z17 . Nevertheless, there's a clear line running from those much earlier technologies to the ones at our fingertips today. Nothing stays the same when it comes to computing, even if the names don't change.
Starting with languages, [6]C, the language of choice for system programmers , is still alive and well, as it's already over 50 years old. I expect it, and COBOL too, to reach the century mark.
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Yes, I know all about C's built-in security problems, but you still can't beat it when it comes to raw speed. Sure, assembler is even faster – just ask the FFmpeg developers – but you can run C on pretty much any CPU.
Lately, there's been a lot of talk about [8]Rust replacing C for system programming . And, yes, memory-safe [9]Rust is now a full-fledged language for programming in the Linux kernel . However, speed and portability have always been C's killer features, and that hasn't changed.
SQL also isn't going anywhere this century. It's embedded in every major relational database management system (RDBMS), and it's here for the long run. There are tens of billions of lines of SQL in stored procedures and queries. It's embedded in far too much data – and business logic is bound to it – for it to disappear.
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Another language that people love to hate, JavaScript/TypeScript, isn't going anywhere either. Much as developers like to make fun of it, it's still the de facto language of the web browser and a major server‑side runtime. So long as we're using the web platform, JavaScript, in one dialect or another, will be required for compatibility.
Linux is forever. We'll still be running Linux come 2100. Heck, I won't be surprised to see computers still running Linux in 2125. Oh, and I expect Linus Torvalds' other greatest creation, Git, to be with us for at least another 50 years.
Along with Linux, I expect vi and Emacs to persist. We'll also need fast text editors. Even Bash, which has outlasted all the other Unix/Linux shells, may hang around for another century or so.
[11]Bots, bias, and bunk: How can you tell what's real on the net?
[12]Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling
[13]Why Elon Musk won't ever realize the shareholder-approved Tesla payout
[14]The Chinese Box and Turing Test: AI has no intelligence at all
A technology I think is here for the foreseeable future but others might disagree with is Kubernetes. This is the default container orchestration program for pretty much every cloud around. It has its critics, but love it or hate it, it's the foundation for cloud-native computing and all the dozens of other programs and services we use for modern-day cloud computing.
Moving on to higher levels of technology, I see Photoshop going on for decades more to come. Yes, I'm a big open source fan, and GIMP is what I use, but facts are facts. If you do serious work with images, you're almost certainly a user of Photoshop and its ecosystem.
File formats are another matter. Once one is established as the top format in any field, it tends to hang on forever. That's why we're still using Microsoft's DOC and its newer variant, DOCX, instead of the superior and far more open ODF. That's not a good thing.
For example, we all use Adobe PDF when we need a document to look and behave the same everywhere, be hard to accidentally change, and remain readable for years and years. However, people who work with PDF a lot are painfully aware that there are many PDF variants, and they have more than their share of compatibility problems.
As my friend Dan Rosenbaum, an editor and singer, pointed out to me, there are industry standards such as the proprietary [15]Finale for music notation, which was abandoned by its maker . In the continuing aftershocks, musicians have discovered there's no easy way to port Finale compositions to any other format, and thus any other music notation program. This has led to what he describes as an "ongoing crisis in that industry."
This leads to my final thought of technologies that will stand the test of time. They're almost always open standards and/or open source. Any tech that relies on a single company is brittle. Yes, even DOC/DOCX and PDF. ®
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2014/04/08/cobol_s_360_anniversary/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/08/ibm_z17_update/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/18/c_opinion/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aVUCURS2mA8mNB1FVvA8SgAAApU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/23/opinion_column/
[9] https://devclass.com/2025/12/15/rust-boosted-by-permanent-adoption-for-linux-kernel-code/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aVUCURS2mA8mNB1FVvA8SgAAApU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/05/bots_bias_bunk/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/02/ingress_nginx_opinion/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/14/opinion_musk_tesla_payout/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/ai_intelligence_opinion/
[15] https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/end-of-finale-new-journey-dorico-letter-from-president/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"ATM networks"
Reminded me that supposedly durable networking technologies (thinking here asynchronous transfer mode) can be rather ephemeral.
My punt is that TCP/IP will still be alive and kicking † in some form in 2126—that is if we aren't back to banging rocks together and catching on to this newfangled fire thing.
† presumably arse.
Re: "ATM networks"
IPv4 will probably still be around then too.
Your point?
So is the most _fragile_ tech; Windoze ;)
Open Source
PDF and DOC/X are editable by open source software and will survive the collapse of their parent companies.
There are very few technology companies that will survive 50 or 100 years: at the moment I can only think of a couple. (IBM is a shade over 100; Ericsson will be 150 years old in 2026.)
Open standards (and open source) is the secret of longevity.
Re: Open Source
PDF and DOC/X are editable by open source software and will survive the collapse of their parent companies.
Not necessarily very well though, due to the many ways of interpreting the so-called "standard". I find PDFs created from Word documents can be particularly troublesome.
Trying to print the [1]GCHQ Christmas quiz this year, Libre Office Draw could only import the first page*, Okular printed it out with some text missing and some incorrect colours (though on-screen display was fine) and Inkscape couldn't deal with the embedded fonts.
The best non-Adobe reader/editor I've used is Xara, though I gather Serif has a good bash too. Both are paid-for products.
M.
*The three variations are simply in "cover design". The core quiz is the same on all three so it's not strictly necessary to print them all out.
[1] https://www.gchq.gov.uk/news/gchq-christmas-challenge-2025
Re: Open Source
Open standards (and open source) is the secret of longevity.
Doesn't have to be "open", just documented.
"musicians have discovered there's no easy way to port Finale compositions to any other format"
Following the link reveals two points. 1. There's no hint of an apology to their customers, just thanks for contributing money over the years and 2. files can be exported to an open standard MusicXML.
After one year, beginning August 2025, these changes will go into effect:
It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale
Modern software in a nutshell - you paid for it but we still own it, and when we can't work out what to do with it next we will screw you.
They don't want to sell or maintain it any more, but one final update which disables the activation check and leaves you with the software you paid for is still out of the question.
Finale
Presumably the open source replacement will be "Overture"?
The security problem with C is developer culture. Many compilers, such as gcc and llvm, support runtime checking, such as array/pointer bounds. However, the developer culture of C is not to use these compiler options, which default to off.
The culture of Rust is that runtime checking is on by default. It has always struck me as crazy that a change of language is needed to get developers to switch from a culture of runtime checking off to a culture of runtime checking on. On the other hand, rewriting code is more fun than maintaining existing code, and they have the fun of learning a new language.
What young developer want to use the language that their parents use? Rust is just so much more trendier than C. I am predicting that Zig will replace Rust as the Trendy language: https://shape-of-code.com/2025/02/16/zig-is-the-next-fashionable-language/
there are many PDF variants, and they have more than their share of compatibility problems
One can say the exact same thing about DOC files. They have grown and expanded over the years and thus have their fair share of cruft and weirdness.
In the raw
> we all use Adobe PDF when we need a document to look and behave the same everywhere
Personally I assign that attribute to unadorned text (.txt) files.
On a more basic or BASIC level, I think there is still a lot of life in binary logic, RS232 comms and FORTRAN. On a more contentious level, what about good old tape in all its forms?