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Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#281

Post by saagarjha »

monadic2 wrote: post #227
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #224

My wife is a photographer; an excellent one. She has thousands of digital images that have been manipulated by a certain unique, proprietary software package. There are no modern equivalent applications, and the original one stopped being updated almost a decade ago. Miraculously, it still works, but she is terrified at every upgrade prompt. There aren’t really any acceptable substitutions for the original app. She c…

VMs might work. It's hard (impossible?) for most versions of osx.

I think people have gotten pretty much every version of macOS virtualized. It’s a bit of work, yes, but not a huge amount.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#282

Post by billpg »

Iolaum wrote: post #152
taneq wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's why its best to find free software solutions for your computing needs where possible. The options a user has on free software solutions discourage that behaviour.

Free software has the same problem. I know people who have switched off Firefox updates because an update changed something in a way they didn't like.

In order to fix their issue with the new version, they worked out how to roll-back by one version and disable future updates.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#283

Post by saagarjha »

hyperman1 wrote: post #189
egypturnash wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Funny. I'm trying to adapt my Java workflow from eclipse to idea. Again. And I know that almost everyone agrees idea is better than eclipse. And some of eclipse's major features are broken enough to actually hamper me professionally - looking at you, maven integration. And both tools seem at least equally capable, just everything is named different and placed somewhere else. But eclipse is now about 20 years ingraine…

For me InyelliJ just can’t get it quite like how I have Eclipse set up, and it’s somehow uglier than Eclipse…

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#284

Post by kleiba »

augustk wrote: post #264
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…

IF newTV THEN delay := 0 ELSE (*make customer by new TV*) delay := 10 END

Careful! Apple might sue you for IP theft.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#285

Post by pitay »

jacquesm wrote: post #181
darkwater wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

App stores and SaaS do an end run around open source.

SaaS does an end run around GPL in particular. Unless it is Affero GPL.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#286

Post by Chris2048 »

mattnewton wrote: post #142
stubish wrote: post #141

Taring everything with the same brush. There was a time, not so long ago, when it was impossible to install Windows over the Internet because so many other machines were compromised and your machine would, with certainty, also end up compromised before it had gotten as far as applying the latest service pack. Then we got automatic updates, and we all breathed a sigh of relief because things got better . We had empiri…

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.

Windows 10 "pre-installs" a load of BS Casino/Farmville-esque games. Not install, "pre-install" as in the files to install are there, but it's not actually installed so you can't remove them via the usual method, you have to find the right PowerShell commands.

These are the games advertised/installed from the start menu / tiles.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#287

Post by augustk »

saagarjha wrote: post #268
augustk wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IF newTV THEN delay := 0 ELSE (*make customer by new TV*) delay := 10 END

Guess what? The new TV uses that software too, so it’s about as slow.

I have a year-old TV from LG. Changing channels with the numeric buttons take around 4 seconds, while using the increment/decrement buttons I have to wait only one second. Strange!

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#288

Post by GoblinSlayer »

Joeri wrote: post #247
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 suit…

I do that kind of maintenance. Sometimes it's reverse migration code. Because CD doesn't fly. Maybe people don't know it doesn't fly and still push it, or they know it doesn't fly and still push it. And there's no asymmetry between user and developer, developers are users too and experience all this first hand from the user side.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#289

Post by scns »

HenryBemis wrote: post #212
causality0 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even that is risk-free. I was doxxed by a developer after Google's idiotic real-name policy put me in his crosshairs for my one-star review.

Tip/suggestion: Make a separate Google account with fake name/suername for reviews on Google. I have a few Google accounts. Only one is my actual name. Especially for games and reviews I use an aliased account (just like I use an alias here). Google can still track me I guess (IP) but a single dev will never find who UnrealName UnrealSurname is. And I do tend to leave brutally honest and detailed feedbacks whether po…

Let us hope this little trick will not get all of your accounts suspended without recourse.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#290

Post by Akronymus »

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.

I literally only update apps on my phone when the old version becomes unusable [1] or when the new version actually provides something of worth.

For desktop software, most seem to, sadly, be self updating or a website.

For example, youtube now has a miniplayer when playing a playlist on desktop. I find that "feature" to be absolutely atrocious and would rather do without it. But due to it being a website they changed it to make it impossible to turn it off.

[1] Whatsapp

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