Upgrades when shutting down prevent me from catching the train on time. Upgrades on startup prevent me from checking the train schedule. Insanity. Thats why I run an OS that I control.
Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
61–70 of 588 posts
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#62Some 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 le…
Fennec (the old Firefox for Android) was, as far as I'm aware, a different codebase compared to Fenix (the new one). As in, Fennec was hosted on hg.mozilla.org using the same source tree as desktop Firefox, and Fenix is hosted on GitHub, if I understand things correctly.
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, you know your car that you brought in for an oil change? I switched the turn signal controls with the wipers. No charge, and no givebacks.
I really think I could adapt to that easily and wouldn’t mind.
Then you are in the minority. Most people like having certain predictable arrangements in their life and get annoyed when they have to adjust to a new arrangement arbitrarily. Maybe that's actually not the case for you, but I suspect it is more than you think, and I guarantee it is for 99% of people in general.
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#64> 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…
> They obviously managed to learn and adapt to the current UI. Why can’t they adapt to a new one?
Let me put it like this: would you rather relearn the same skill over and over again, or build upon existing knowledge by learning new skills?
Watch an experienced vi user make changes to a document. That's not magic that you're seeing, it's someone who is modifying a document as fast as they can think because they are proficient with the software. That's true of pretty much any software that was designed with productivity in mind, it's just that vi users like to show off. :)
Some software is also impossible to learn in depth if you take a learn today, gone tomorrow approach. Consider a rather popular application like Microsoft Word. There was a lot of resistance to the transition to the ribbon bar. A good number of people who resisted the change did so because they spent a great number of years learning the program in depth. There's a lot of stuff crammed in there that the vast majority of people aren't even aware of and even experienced users will only touch on every few years. With timescales like that, a sufficient number of changes to the UI means that the skill is useless once it has been learnt.
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#65As 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…
That will never happen as long as shareholders are the only people that companies are legally beholden to
That will never happen as long as software continues to be regarded as a "cost center"
That will never happen as long as developers insist that their happiness is more immportant than that of their users
That will never happen as long as evangelists keep pushing this doctrine that more updates, more features, more whatever, is better
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#66How do you solve the problem of having a thousand versions to support
A) commit to a timeline of support for the new branch whenever you make a change requiring branching (your existing branch should already have a commited timeline)
B) don't mess everything up all the time so you have to support a lot of branches
Look at the OS support plans for guidelines.
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#67I like the main idea here, but the points listed are a bit extreme. Specifically this one: > should never update a user interface without allowing the previous one to be used as the default Are you ready to pay for the ongoing support of all legacy interfaces, including the ones you're not using and which are possibly not used by anyone in the world (no telemetry)? Are you ready for all the bugs and security issues t…
I took that restriction to be specifically for automatic updates, and I agree. Don't break my workflow without my consent.
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#68As 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…
> For them, it's often cheaper or more profitable in the short run not to do any of these things.
For free-as-in-beer software? You get what you pay for.
Supporting a full matrix of (security release) * (feature release) combinations isn't cheap.
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#69I wish this problem would be more 'forefront' in legislation, because TBH this is already at the point of being ridiculous, completely out of touch and also FINANCIALLY DAMAGING to the customers and/or users.
Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade
#70> 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?
I mean, a lot of programmers have spent their entire lives either using Emacs or vi keybindings. It's pretty unreasonable to ask them to change. Mentally switching to an entire different set of editing commands is incredibly difficult and time consuming. I've been using Emacs for over 15 years and I don't know any other keybindings. If I had to switch to vim, it might take me years to get comfortable.