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Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#241

Post by txutxu »

viraptor wrote: post #54

I 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…

If the UI is changed to fix "bugs and security issues", I'm perfectly fine.

If the UI is changed:

* for no reason (other than justify the salary of the designers team)

* just for the sake of "give the impression of evolution", but really it's just hiding or moving buttons and menus and changing font sizes, colors, layouts...

* or to intrusively insert new and unrelated products, in the middle of the original workflow

* or to remove (or change) basic and intrinsic product functionality

* or to prevent to continue the (intended) workflows acquired with previous usage

then I'm not so fine...

anyway, what is mentioned is just that automated updates (and this does not apply to web applications I think), shouldn't do that change, without an "option to stick to the previous" UI. At least in minor version updates, I totally agree.

Edit: format and verb tenses

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#242

Post by xenonite »

sn41 wrote: post #97

Amen to the article. High Sierra was the high point of my romance with Apple. Dictation used to work decently until that point, just as a small example. Catalina has pretty much ruined a lot of my favorite features. I had to update the OS because Office updates no longer worked.

Oh macOS... I am still on El Capitan where PDFs are rendered with subpixels. Yes, I can see the difference even on retina displays.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#243

Post by wolf550e »

enriquto wrote: post #238

There are many different reasons for not upgrading a program. Mine is a bit ridiculous. I never upgrade the Firefox browser, as a matter of principle. The reason is that last time I did, Firefox would refuse to open new tabs unless it was restarted. I did not want to restart it, since i'm running a few windows in private mode, using different 2FA logins, and that would entail to fill-in a lot of passwords and type a…

Did you try separate profiles?

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#244

Post by boring_twenties »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #158
mattnewton wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny you mention Microsoft, because I have a windows machine to play games on. It regularly updates itself and re-enables telemetry I had disabled, shows spammy news in the start menu and ads for Microsoft products in my toolbar, and reinstalls skype every time I try to get rid of it.

Keeping Windows behind a whitelist firewall seems to be a good idea.

Even better, in the Recycle Bin.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#245

Post by MaxBarraclough »

orev wrote: post #106

I had been using a great app that’s been around since before the iPhone came out (PocketMoney on Palm). They rewrote it for IOS, and it was able to import the database from the Palm version. Really great. Then sadly the author died, and it languished for a while until it was sold to someone else. The new owner seemed to try to keep it going, but then finally gave up last year and crammed an absolutely awful “update”…

This is a real 'Stallman moment'. The issue there is less about updates, than about non-Free software (the thing the FSF talk about), and data silos (the thing the IndieWeb folks talk about).

You committed to a non-Free software solution, the maintainers of which held all the power over the software, denying you the freedom to have the software do as you wish. When they make a decision, it's to maximise their benefit, not yours. (They might also do so incompetently.) When they make a decision against your interests, unfortunately you have little recourse.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#246

Post by unionpivo »

zxcmx wrote: post #121
grugagag wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't force updates on people. For the ones who want to update asap they should be able to do so. I prefer to make sure a major update is not going to fuck my system then I will update as well, it's happened to me before multiple times and I am forever hesitant about this. It's also happened to me to get featured removed when updating so if something is working allright I will hesitate updating for a while.

Context matters. So 3d sculpting software or CAD do not deeply need automatic updates, although it can greatly reduce support requests (e.g. something in the OS changed, software is now crashing, need to install update). The state of play in 2020 however is that operating systems and browsers 100% need automatic updates for security issues. The reason we have them is because of all the bad things that happened when w…

I have been in IT for over 20 years now.

I have had orders of magnitude more problem with updates than with malware/viruses/hackers.

The thing is with malware/viruses/hackers sooner or later something will get through any defences, so you need robust recovery system anyway.

And most updates that brake systems are not even security updates. I wouldn't mind automated security updates, but many many many maybe most vendors pile whatever happens to compile to their updates so that they customers can test it for them.

Firefox on mobile just fucked us in the ass (extension we developed for client doesn't work anymore and we can't fix it. And since we have support contract we will probably have to eat the cost of whatever alternative we have to build.).

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#247

Post by Joeri »

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…

If you have to do all that, it costs a lot more to develop updates. I think most developers mean well but just can't afford to do it all.

For example:

> should be incremental and security or bug fixes only

That means maintaining multiple releases of the app, and porting fixes between those versions, while also maintaining data migration logic when fixes affect data formats. I've maintained an enterprise software suite before where we did it like that, and it added a double digit percentage to the cost of development. You also get drawn into a discussion of what exactly constitutes a fix. Some users consider a missing feature a bug, sometimes they're right.

> should never update a user interface without allowing the previous one to be used as the default

I hope you've maintained a very clean separation between view an controller layers, because otherwise you'll have duplicate business logic and tons of bugs. Again, been there, done that, was not a happy camper.

> must allow a revert to the previous situation

So, maintaining and testing data migration algorithms in both directions then?

> should never change the format of data already stored on the system

Multiple independent read and write paths? How many combinations of UI and data logic do you get? A combinatorial explosion can cause this to become effectively untestable.

Granted, some developers are bad, and abuse automatic updates. I swore off Oracle Java after a security update installed malware on my system (called Norton Antivirus). But most developers are not like that. They mean well, they're doing the best they can given their limited resources.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#248

Post by m463 »

orev wrote: post #106

I had been using a great app that’s been around since before the iPhone came out (PocketMoney on Palm). They rewrote it for IOS, and it was able to import the database from the Palm version. Really great. Then sadly the author died, and it languished for a while until it was sold to someone else. The new owner seemed to try to keep it going, but then finally gave up last year and crammed an absolutely awful “update”…

The app I used was "gas cubby" recommended by a friend to keep track of my car. You could record your fillups and compute gas mileage and lots of other statistics. You could keep track of the vin, the insurance policy number, part numbers and service intervals.

I slowly put all my data into it and...

The app was sold, and one day they changed it and uploaded all my data to the cloud.

I deleted the app (and apparently all my data). what jerks.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#249

Post by d_k_f »

enriquto wrote: post #238

There are many different reasons for not upgrading a program. Mine is a bit ridiculous. I never upgrade the Firefox browser, as a matter of principle. The reason is that last time I did, Firefox would refuse to open new tabs unless it was restarted. I did not want to restart it, since i'm running a few windows in private mode, using different 2FA logins, and that would entail to fill-in a lot of passwords and type a…

You could use containers to "emulate" private mode for these windows by completely isolating them from your regular browsing data. They should survive a restart and keep you logged in afterwards. As long as you only use the container to access one site, no data should be leaked to other sites.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#250

Post by rraghur »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #197
ekianjo wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then sadly the author died, and it languished for a while until it was sold to someone else. The new owner seemed to try to keep it going, but then finally gave up last year and crammed an absolutely awful “update” that was actually a totally different software via the automatic update process. Everyone’s financial data got locked up in this new version that is almost useless. ~20 years of financial tracking just g…

Is there an open format for bookkeeping data? I suppose you have ledger-cli but that's hardly useful for normal people.

Or as someone posted here on HN a while ago - sqlite?
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