Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

jacquesmattheij.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 588 posts

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#41

Post by egypturnash »

chrisseaton wrote: post #7

> should never update a user interface without allowing the previous one to be used as the default I don’t understand why people are so precious about their UI and workflow. They obviously managed to learn and adapt to the current UI. Why can’t they adapt to a new one? If you’re super sensitive to something as trivial as a change to a menu location maybe that’s a sign you should be automating whatever your workflow i…

I don't understand why programmers are so precious about their choice of text editor. They obviously managed to learn and adapt to their current choice. Why can't they adapt to a new one?

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#42

Post by apricot »

TL;DR: "More often than not automatic updates are not done with the interest of the user in mind."

Exhibit A being the fact that automatic updates often silently re-enable privacy violating settings. When a company is caught doing this, it's always an unfortunate mistake. But strangely I've never seen this error go the other way, towards more privacy for the user.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#43

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

taneq wrote: post #15
cs702 wrote: post #8

As a user of software, I couldn't agree more with the OP that automatic updates: > should always keep the user centric > should be incremental and security or bug fixes only > should never update a user interface without allowing the previous one to be used as the default > should never be used to install telemetry or spyware or to re-enable it if it was previously switched off > should never be used to install other…

So to sum that up, Johnny Won't Upgrade because like as not, the writers of the updates are The Enemy.

That is the modern tech business model. Rope in naive people with excellent services offered at a loss or at cost, wait for them to develop dependence, use nazi cult-think psychology to inculcate irrational loyalty to the platform, then take everything away in a major software update and sell it back to the poor fools for big profits.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#44

Post by chrisseaton »

ziml77 wrote: post #40
chrisseaton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t use keyboard shortcuts TBH.

If you're not using keyboard shortcuts, then there's much less ingrained in your muscle memory. You're using more conscious effort to perform tasks which means that when something changes you don't need to put forth extra effort to override the subconscious. That gives you more adaptability, but the downside is lower efficiency in terms of both speed and energy expenditure.

> That gives you more adaptability

Right and also less time rote learning cryptic key combinations like I’m learning a book of spells.

> but the downside is lower efficiency in terms of both speed and energy expenditure

Thinking time is 99% of computer time in my experience. Keep brain space for that rather than the magic key spells, is my philosophy.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#45

Post by chrisseaton »

egypturnash wrote: post #41
chrisseaton wrote: post #7

> should never update a user interface without allowing the previous one to be used as the default I don’t understand why people are so precious about their UI and workflow. They obviously managed to learn and adapt to the current UI. Why can’t they adapt to a new one? If you’re super sensitive to something as trivial as a change to a menu location maybe that’s a sign you should be automating whatever your workflow i…

I don't understand why programmers are so precious about their choice of text editor. They obviously managed to learn and adapt to their current choice. Why can't they adapt to a new one?

Well I guess you’re trying to mock me but I also agree with this.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#47

Post by ziml77 »

fouc wrote: post #36
cs702 wrote: post #8

As a user of software, I couldn't agree more with the OP that automatic updates: > should always keep the user centric > should be incremental and security or bug fixes only > should never update a user interface without allowing the previous one to be used as the default > should never be used to install telemetry or spyware or to re-enable it if it was previously switched off > should never be used to install other…

Automatic updates are rather immoral for platforms like operating systems and browsers. And probably should be outlawed.

I'd only agree with that if part of that is also a law that forces ISPs to cut off anyone who's been taken over and is part of a botnet.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#48

Post by pmiller2 »

Yeah, I'm regretting upgrading Google Maps on iOS recently. For some reason now, whenever I bump the phone, the map view changes. I need my map view to show me going left when I turn left and right when I go right in order to make sense of things, but it will usually end up in a static "north = top of screen" orientation, no matter what I do. It's turned a good piece of software into something almost unusable.

Edit: Well, what do you know, I just upgraded again (because it can't get a whole lot worse), and it's back to expected behavior.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#49

Post by the_pwner224 »

gruez wrote: post #32
kl4m wrote: post #12

> should never be used to install telemetry or spyware or to re-enable it if it was previously switched off I lost track of the number of times a friendly Windows 10 (and 7) update has re-enabled telemetry. Either that or there is yet another , completely different post-update Wizard for advertisement, telemetry, default applications, and other privacy stuff (There sure is a lot of effort put in moving settings aroun…

>I lost track of the number of times a friendly Windows 10 (and 7) update has re-enabled telemetry. Either that or there is yet another, completely different post-update Wizard for advertisement, telemetry, default applications, and other privacy stuff (There sure is a lot of effort put in moving settings around each update!) ...and that's why I'm using LTSC, because it's limited to security updates and supported for…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18156955

Works great and rock solid, even with new hardware released after LTSC. Missing the Windows Store but if you search the web there's a github repo which has an installable version.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#50

Post by userbinator »

wvenable wrote: post #4

Some automatic updates should really just be different products. The most obvious one at the moment is Android Firefox is getting a big automatic update that, for a lot of people, will be a very big downgrade and an unfriendly UI change. But Mozilla doesn't want to maintain security patches for X different products. And that's true of most vendors. This model of computing where all users are always on the latest vers…

But Mozilla doesn't want to maintain security patches for X different products.

Are they really different products (versions), or are they just branches off a common tree and share so much code in common that it would be close to trivial to apply the fix to them all? My experience with security-related patches is that they're almost all extremely localised --- a missing check, an off-by-one, etc.

It seems like far less effort to do that than a massive rewrite of the UI, in any case...

Post reply on HN