Chrome browser for businesses • Hacker News Board

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#231

Post by tw04 » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

tomelders wrote: post #122

dingaling wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies have far too much internal plumbing to permit browsers to auto-update themselves. Being feature-compatible with the latest SV-poster-child website is insignificant compared to maintaining stability for the tax-management team's internal web app. I was once involved in an IE6 -> IE8 upgrade for a Fortune 100 corporation. It took nine months to analyze all the possible impacts and implement mitigations before…

I think this is a weak argument. The problem here is that companies think that software can exist in some sort of "done" state, where no further updates or development is required. That has never been true. The hardware and software changes. The infrastructure it connects to changes. But most importantly, your workflows must evolve if you are to remain efficient. If you roll your own software, you either commit to co…

>The problem here is that companies think that software can exist in some sort of "done" state, where no further updates or development is required.

>That has never been true.

That opinion is the exact reason we constantly have jr. dev's re-inventing the wheel with their great new idea. Nothing frustrates me more than someone thinking they should re-write applications just for the sake of re-writing it. If the software is feature complete, and lacks bugs, WHY WOULD YOU RE-WRITE IT?? To frustrate end-users with a new interface they have to learn? Because you're bored and want to deploy language of the month?

Your two options are ridiclous and show a very naive view of the world of software. There are literally pieces of code at likely every one of the fortune 100 that was written in the 80s for a specific task, still does that task flawlessly, and has absolutely no reason for anyone to touch it. That's a GOOD THING.

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#232

Post by illumin8 » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

gajjanag wrote: post #205

illumin8 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean this is a good practice. In fact, I would argue that this type of thinking has created far more harm than good for both the IT industry as well as the companies that adopt this harmful practice. Case in point: many of these same companies that refuse to upgrade systems for a decade or more are still running Windows XP and Server 2003. Due to the negligence of their IT leadership, they are now vulner…

> That doesn't mean this is a good practice. In fact, I would argue that this type of thinking has created far more harm than good for both the IT industry as well as the companies that adopt this harmful practice. > Case in point: many of these same companies that refuse to upgrade systems for a decade or more are still running Windows XP and Server 2003. Due to the negligence of their IT leadership, they are now vu…

As another commenter mentioned, LTS for Windows XP and Server 2003 is very good - where else can you expect 15+ years of support?

> but as a business, I would always be interested in minimizing my maintenance burden.

The argument that I'm trying to make is that by deferring maintenance until it is too late, you're actually dramatically increasing your maintenance burden in the long term. Testing and maintenance fixes for your app to support Chrome updates, which rarely break anything, will be much lower over a 10+ year (or probably even 5+ year) timeframe than just sticking your head in the sand and making someone 10 years from now pay an astronomical cost to refactor the app completely.

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#233

Post by NotHereNotThere » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:10 PM UTC

therealmarv wrote: post #83

Oh cool, a version for corporate rule fetishism admins who love controlling their MSI files. Happy I don't work in such an environment.

If you can't see how even a single one of these 200 policies could be useful for a corporate environment, then you are just plain ignorant and/or trolling, or you've only been exposed to tiny startup environments.

And I'm not talking about controlling employees here, but simply enforcing settings for compatibility with legacy systems, legal compliance, etc, the list is endless.

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#234

Post by illumin8 » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #214

illumin8 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean this is a good practice. In fact, I would argue that this type of thinking has created far more harm than good for both the IT industry as well as the companies that adopt this harmful practice. Case in point: many of these same companies that refuse to upgrade systems for a decade or more are still running Windows XP and Server 2003. Due to the negligence of their IT leadership, they are now vulner…

You make an interesting analogy, but I'm not sure it truly supports the point you were hoping to make. If maintaining critical infrastructure like bridges and tunnels worked like deploying software updates, every few weeks the bridge or tunnel would close itself to traffic in one direction for a while, without warning. Every now and then when the tunnel reopened, it would feature a loop-the-loop hidden inside the mou…

> If maintaining critical infrastructure like bridges and tunnels worked like deploying software updates, every few weeks the bridge or tunnel would close itself to traffic in one direction for a while, without warning.

They already do this by closing lanes, and even closing entire bridges at night during maintenance when required. The "without notice" part is only if you're doing it wrong - you should be giving your users advance notice of any maintenance activity.

> Every now and then when the tunnel reopened, it would feature a loop-the-loop hidden inside the mountain. While it looked the same from outside, it would therefore become completely impassable by large amounts of the traffic that used to rely on it, including ambulances, food supplies, and the CEO's limo.

I'm not sure I buy this argument. The failure modes of bridges are well understood and usually life threatening. The failure modes of software are not as well understood, but are rarely life threatening. If you're updating pacemaker software, yes, take extreme precautions and don't introduce defects, but the amount of testing and preparation should depend on the impact of a potential failure.

> Every couple of years, your world famous suspension bridge, used as a widely recognised landmark by millions, would be redesigned more like a Roman aqueduct.

This seems like a false equivalency. Suspension bridges take years or decades to design and build. Software can be built in weeks or even days. The frequency of major infrastructure changes is directly correlated with the time and effort involved in deploying them, in both civil and software engineering.

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#235

Post by ianai » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

barney54 wrote: post #92

abtinf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might say that if one were completely ignorant of economics and economic history. There are no examples of long running monopolies unsupported by state power.

It would be nice for the people who are down voting you to provide a counter example.

The banking sector, Alcoa, big pharma, automotive, oil/gas energy, telecom, and even groceries. Anywhere you have rents being sought and reaped you have monopolistic power. Im excluding the remark about government supported because that's more of a corporation forcing the governments hand through threats.

When someone calls me ignorant I don't necessarily feel like replying.

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#236

Post by alkonaut » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #145

hiram112 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it became harder to write true desktop apps once VB6 was killed off in favor of .Net with its higher learning curve. As bad as a real language VB6 and it's GUI builder were, it did allow even amateurs to write a decent working crud app in minimal time.

I still think VB6 was the pinnacle for writing line of business CRUD apps. I've been told there are still some VB6 apps I wrote ~15 years ago running at a big enterprise I once worked for.

I find C# and WinForms at least as simple as vb6. They did make Lightswitch to really dumb down the one-off crud app development, but I'm not sure if that still lives.

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#237

Post by beefield » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:49 PM UTC

dispose13432 wrote: post #224

dingaling wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies have far too much internal plumbing to permit browsers to auto-update themselves. Being feature-compatible with the latest SV-poster-child website is insignificant compared to maintaining stability for the tax-management team's internal web app. I was once involved in an IE6 -> IE8 upgrade for a Fortune 100 corporation. It took nine months to analyze all the possible impacts and implement mitigations before…

>Companies have far too much internal plumbing to permit browsers to auto-update themselves. Being feature-compatible with the latest SV-poster-child website is insignificant compared to maintaining stability for the tax-management team's internal web app. So why don't they have two browsers - one for internal use only (IE6), which is firewalled to only internal network shares and another browser (Chrome, whatever) w…

> So why don't they have two browsers

I definitely do not claim they were right, but one of my previous employer's (not a software company) IT department insisted that additional applications in employee's computers were an extra workload for them to maintain. (Occasionally also security was used as an excuse). So the text editor that was allowed was notepad and the browser was IE.

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#238

Post by coredog64 » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:58 PM UTC

radicalbyte wrote: post #132

dingaling wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies have far too much internal plumbing to permit browsers to auto-update themselves. Being feature-compatible with the latest SV-poster-child website is insignificant compared to maintaining stability for the tax-management team's internal web app. I was once involved in an IE6 -> IE8 upgrade for a Fortune 100 corporation. It took nine months to analyze all the possible impacts and implement mitigations before…

The problem is that Chrome remove features without providing any viable replacement. For example Flash: currently the Chrome audio APIs do not cover all of the functionality provided by Flash. You cannot, for example, pause the recording of audio. If you have a product which requires that functionality then you're stuck. You can't upgrade. In the recent past I was in just that position: we had no choice but to block…

Chrome can't kill Flash fast enough. I'm stuck with AppD, and the sooner that Chrome highlights what a festering pile of garbage their web portal is, the better.

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#239

Post by dispose13432 » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #234

Silhouette wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make an interesting analogy, but I'm not sure it truly supports the point you were hoping to make. If maintaining critical infrastructure like bridges and tunnels worked like deploying software updates, every few weeks the bridge or tunnel would close itself to traffic in one direction for a while, without warning. Every now and then when the tunnel reopened, it would feature a loop-the-loop hidden inside the mou…

> If maintaining critical infrastructure like bridges and tunnels worked like deploying software updates, every few weeks the bridge or tunnel would close itself to traffic in one direction for a while, without warning. They already do this by closing lanes, and even closing entire bridges at night during maintenance when required. The "without notice" part is only if you're doing it wrong - you should be giving your…

>The failure modes of software are not as well understood, but are rarely life threatening.

Well, it's not life threatening, but what do you think will happen if every month your credit-card stops working for a few days because of a Windows/Linux regression?

Re: Chrome browser for businesses

#240

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #234

Silhouette wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make an interesting analogy, but I'm not sure it truly supports the point you were hoping to make. If maintaining critical infrastructure like bridges and tunnels worked like deploying software updates, every few weeks the bridge or tunnel would close itself to traffic in one direction for a while, without warning. Every now and then when the tunnel reopened, it would feature a loop-the-loop hidden inside the mou…

> If maintaining critical infrastructure like bridges and tunnels worked like deploying software updates, every few weeks the bridge or tunnel would close itself to traffic in one direction for a while, without warning. They already do this by closing lanes, and even closing entire bridges at night during maintenance when required. The "without notice" part is only if you're doing it wrong - you should be giving your…

Sorry, but we seem to be talking completely at cross-purposes here.

My previous comment was not really about the realities of civil engineering. It was about how absurd civil engineering would be, if the routine maintenance done in that context failed as often and as spectacularly as software updates do.

To be more blunt about it: Organisations don't want software that updates itself frequently and fallibly, because they simply can't afford to have basic functionality going out of service every few weeks, complete and possibly permanent loss of compatibility with critical services from time to time, and the design and UI changing at random in ways that are confusing to users.