Why Johnny Won't Upgrade • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#291

Post by tremon » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

whatch wrote: post #273

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…

Maybe it's because I've never owned a dedicated TV and used a lot of computer monitors, but I've always treated TV as just another kind of output device, not independent system. They try to use "smart" features to promote their products, but instead what they do with them shortly after the purchase has exactly opposite effect. Also some of them (Samsung) intentionally break some (or all) smart features in some cases…

In fact, when my old TV broke down a couple of years ago (dead pixel columns), I replaced it with a 34" PC monitor. I actually paid through the nose to get less features (and more reliability).

It's a good thing that I'm blessed with a small living room, and I don't need 50" monstrosities ;)

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#292

Post by eru » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

whatch wrote: post #275

pmontra wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's got a faster CPU/GPU. Saw that happen with computers and then phones for some 40 years.

It's much better with computers, though. I am able to decently run modern games on 2015 gaming PC. My 2015 flagman phone from meizu seems to have the same processing power as potato. And I don't even play games on it.

> It's much better with computers, though. I am able to decently run modern games on 2015 gaming PC.

Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates were and are obsessed with backwards compatibility, and _not_ breaking user programmes.

I am not sure how much the Great Man Theory applies here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory) or whether personal computers would have a culture of backwards compatibility without those two?

Intel also seems to care about backwards compatibility. (Though they needed a nudge from AMD when transitioning to 64 bit.)

In contrast, Apple and ARM seem more eager to start from a clean slate. So I can perfectly imagine a personal computer industry in an alternate universe that's happy to force people to recompile their programmes every few years; and otherwise to just abandon old binary-only software.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#293

Post by bestham » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:33 AM UTC

augustk wrote: post #287

saagarjha wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Is is because it is waiting for a multi digit input? You can try to enter 01 for preset 1 or 001 depending on how many presets your TV has.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#294

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:33 AM UTC

This essay almost perfectly describes Debian's commitment and policy toward its users, specified through the Debian Social Contract, "We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities (https://www.debian.org/social_contract), in the structures defined by the Debian Constitution (https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution), following the practices defined in the Debian Policy Manual (https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/), via the mechanisms of Debian's packaging infrastructure and package management system.

This is much misunderstood (and misunderestimated). It's not perfect or automatic. But it's worked remarkably well for over a quarter century.

Ian, you made a damned good thing and you are missed.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#295

Post by nottorp » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:41 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #56

apricot wrote: post #52

Earlier 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.

You may remember when you don't need to pay much attention, but will fail in a complex situation where you neeed the turn signals most. Because you're paying attention to other things in traffic.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#296

Post by habosa » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:41 AM UTC

This is all so true.

Updates are a crutch for the software developer (us). If you want to ship on a certain date you can punt your feature/bug backlog to v2. As a user if you download a Day 0 release of something you pretty much don't expect it to work well anymore. Oh and it's impossible to own software these days. Everything is a subscription.

I miss the days when video games came with all the levels in the box and when I could buy software for a one-time fee and then master the version I downloaded. I used Photoshop CS3 for years and years, I wasn't interested in what the new version could do I had barely scratched the surface.

As someone who ships updates to software weekly I am definitely part of the problem though...

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#297

Post by augustk » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:42 AM UTC

bestham wrote: post #293

augustk wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Is is because it is waiting for a multi digit input? You can try to enter 01 for preset 1 or 001 depending on how many presets your TV has.

Ah, of course! That must be the reason.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#298

Post by kd5bjo » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:43 AM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #255

kd5bjo wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> That is clearly a bug and not an expected behaviour.

No, it’s just a reflection that the pace of updates exceeded my pace of attempting to use Windows. These all applied successfully, and an immediate reboot was fine.

> But consider that you don’t use any other household tool for 8+ hours a day

I don’t use my household computer nearly that much, either. At a guess, it sees a comparable amount of use as my dishwasher which demands significantly less attention. (My office computer is a different story).

> Other household tools are not designed to serve a rapidly moving target of constantly changing application needs.

Regardless of its design intent, my application needs aren’t rapidly changing: I use a computer for roughly the same things as I did 1 or 2 or 3 years ago. Why should I pay the time cost of upgrades to enable features I have no intention of using?

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#299

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:45 AM UTC

augustk wrote: post #287

saagarjha wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

[deleted]

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#300

Post by rightbyte » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #265

rightbyte wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Latest-generation devices contain hardware fuses purposely designed to make prevent downgrading. I think that tells you all you need to know about the position the industry has towards downgrades and whether updates are in the interest of the user or not.

Didn't know that. That is just sick.