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Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#251

Post by enriquto »

wolf550e wrote: post #243
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?

Yes, I use separate profiles. The problem is that tabs opened in a private mode are not recovered when restarting. Of course, that's the whole point of private mode, but it's very annoying to re-login all these sessions via SMS messages just for a random firefox upgrade.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#252

Post by jiggawatts »

Don't forget: "Never slow down the user interface".

I have a 4K Sony television that was their flagship model when it was new, but a couple of years ago they "updated" it with a new version of its OS that looks identical but is incredibly sluggish. Not technically broken, but frustrating to use. Moving around between menu items is a good 2-3 seconds, up to 10 in some cases.

There is literally nothing I can do about this. The display panel is perfectly fine. The tuner works. The streaming works. It's not broken. It's out of warrant, so I can't evne return it.

But it feels like I've been downgraded from "flagship" to "off-brand budget TV" without any physical component ever changing.

I didn't consent to this. I didn't expect the automatic upgrade to nearly, but not quite, break my TV.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#253

Post by Joeri »

shifto wrote: post #237
mschuster91 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if I am able to wrest control away from the manufacturer (e.g. "jailbreak" the device) I may not be able to revert to a prior version because the hardware identifies itself as being physically unable to run the old software. coughs in Nintendo Switch

It seems the Switch has 64 burnable fuses. What will they do after the 64th update?

Make a new console. The Wii doesn't get updates anymore.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#254

Post by n1vz3r »

> So, software vendors, 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

> ...

That's exactly how it's done in conservative Linux distributions like Debian or Centos. By installing Debian stable, you receive 7 years of security updates only, and nothing changes without your permission. And quality of being user-centric is common to the entire FOSS ecosystem.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#255

Post by shawnz »

kd5bjo wrote: post #229
shawnz wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assure you, being diligent about checking for updates is more than enough to solve that issue and there is no need to disable updates in addition. If you install them regularly, then you will not be interrupted. You will only be interrupted if you don't do that for weeks. If you don't believe me, then just try it. Don't base your decisions on FUD from tech bloggers about how terrible the update process is.

About a year ago, I had some problems with WSL and decided to do a proper dual-boot setup. The net result was that Windows insisted on doing a long update cycle every time I attempted to use it. This resulted in an effective boot time of 15-30 minutes, which turned out to never be worth it. Why do these devices with almost no moving parts need weekly (or monthly) maintenance? We don’t accept that level of neediness f…

For starters, that's a totally unrelated issue from what the other poster was talking about. That is clearly a bug and not an expected behaviour.

But consider that you don't use any other household tool for 8+ hours a day, and other household tools are not designed to serve a rapidly moving target of constantly changing application needs.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#256

Post by cringepirate »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #166
denkmoon wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a social life without facebook, and I have a job without linkedin. You don't need them, you choose to use them.

I have a social life without Facebook yes, but I have a huge chunk of friends who use it to communicate and organise things. Another example: I go mountain biking - local clubs use fb pages and groups almost exclusively to inform people about trail closures, updates, events, etc.

I used to drink regularly down the pub. After a while I got sick of putting on weight and feeling rubbish and decided to give it up. The people I drank with after a few weeks stopped calling me (because I wasn't interested in going for a drink) and I haven't spoke to them in years. They wasn't such great friends were they?

If I had friends that didn't bother with me because I wasn't on the platform (facebook) they probably wasn't worth bothering with in the first place.

You can always find an excuse as to why you keep on using these services, some odd thing that you claim you need. I just decided I wasn't going to use them anymore and stop making excuses for having to deal with companies that couldn't give a fuck about me.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#257

Post by GoblinSlayer »

darkwater wrote: post #180
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”…

I'm aware that I will sound condescending but... that's exactly why people "invented" opensource (and/or free software if you prefer). I'm sorry for your problem nonetheless.

You mean opensource has the same problem with updates, but you can always fork (which helps indeed).

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#258

Post by rightbyte »

jiggawatts wrote: post #252

Don't forget: "Never slow down the user interface". I have a 4K Sony television that was their flagship model when it was new, but a couple of years ago they "updated" it with a new version of its OS that looks identical but is incredibly sluggish. Not technically broken, but frustrating to use. Moving around between menu items is a good 2-3 seconds, up to 10 in some cases. There is literally nothing I can do about t…

Can you downgrade the firmware?

I feel like I am at the whim of anti social behavior and conspiracies at some anonymous office with auto updates enabled. The Scrum Agile morning standups at Toaster Corp. could just as well be in my kitchen pushing user hostile features for "business reasons" or enforcing ideologically pure ways to use their toaster.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#259

Post by fauigerzigerk »

That's fine as far as wish lists go. But depending on the kind of software we're talking about, meeting those demands could become expensive and confusing pretty quickly.

What about users running different versions of the software on different devices while expecting everything sync correctly?

What about communicating with versions run by other users?

What about the server side of the app? How many different client versions are you going to support for how long, and what does that mean for database schemas, etc?

Over time, there will be an enormous combinatorial explosion of possible system states and state transitions that will inevitably cause bugs and confusing situations for users.

You'd have to architect everything for forward and backward compatibility - protocols, schemas and all the rest of it. How do you deal with all the complexity without quickly accumulating unmanagable technical debt?

I agree that there are a lot of gratuitous and sloppy automatic upgrades that ignore user interests. I also agree that there are types of software where letting users keep old versions is not a problem at all.

But I don't think this debate is complete without also talking about the issues that remain after accounting for bad faith, incompetence, greed and negligence.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#260

Post by enriquto »

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…

> when updating software on my computer without my permission.

This never happens. No software is ever run on your computer without your permission unless you install it (or willingly buy the computer with that software pre-installed). If you install software that auto-updates, you have it coming.

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