Never update anything • Hacker News Board

Re: Never update anything

#181

Post by pfdzm » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 8:52 AM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #108

EastSmith wrote: post #106

I feel the pain, seeing non-trivial updates for Ruby, Elasticsearch and Postgres (thanks AWS) this year. Can not agree with the React part though. They keep so many things backward compatible. React 16 is 3, 4 years old now? I've updated pretty big code base from early 16 to latest 16 version painlessly - like in a day. Used some of the available code-modes for some really old part of the project. It worked flawlessl…

Sort of off topic I guess, but: if I wanted to learn react nowadays (coming from extensive backend experience but not much in the front end) where should I start? From ignorance, it seems like react has changed a fair amount during its lifetime, in terms of good practices, features available, etc. Where can one find resources that are both complete for a begginer and not outdated?

The new React documentation page[0] is still in beta but worth checking out, since the current documentation's code examples still use class/component-based code, which is not so common since React Hooks were introduced.

[0]https://beta.reactjs.org/learn

Re: Never update anything

#182

Post by enlyth » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC

habeebtc wrote: post #94

Timely. I was recently force upgraded to Win11. Today in fact. Last week I force-downgraded after I got an exception because it is my busy time of year. That exception was not respected and I realized fighting it weekly would be the same time investment as fixing compatibility issues. "What compatibility issues? Win11 is fine, I have had no problems." My coworkers say. Well on Day 1, 2 pretty important pieces of soft…

I upgraded to Windows 11 and the volume bar simply does not show when left clicking on the sound icon on the lower right of the task bar.

No amount of things I've tried makes it work, so to change the volume I have to either use keyboard shortcuts or open the volume mixer in the control panel.

Re: Never update anything

#183

Post by chousuke » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

nlitened wrote: post #162

Igelau wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in this camp. I ran into a recent situation where I could have used a drop-in security module if the project had updated the framework in the past decade. Instead we rolled our own, which is janky and took longer than it should have. Debts have a way of compounding. Tech debt is no exception. Tech debt begets tech debt begets tech debt, and it will hang on your velocity like a ball and chain.

Dedicate 20% of developers’ time on constant updates of all components for a decade just in case you might need one drop-in security module ten years after now (if the company ever lives to see that day)? Does not sound like a good illustrative argument to me, I am afraid.

But it doesn't work like that. You might reserve 20% of the time to chores, but you don't have to use all of that 20% every week. Efficiency of maintenance will improve after you get your processes and tooling in order and everyone has had a bit of experience with them, and the leftover time can be used for whatever the developers feel most deserves the extra time.

The reason to do maintenance constantly is practice, which makes the difference between taking weeks or days vs. hours. When the time spent is evenly distributed, it's also less likely that an important task would be blocked by unavoidable maintenance.

Re: Never update anything

#184

Post by cadamsau » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

Interesting read, personally I disagree with the author on the risk-benefit tradeoff of having lots of updates.

Something work calling out though - the author appears to have completely unironically updated their own post.

Re: Never update anything

#185

Post by Joeri » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #116

habeebtc wrote: post #94

Timely. I was recently force upgraded to Win11. Today in fact. Last week I force-downgraded after I got an exception because it is my busy time of year. That exception was not respected and I realized fighting it weekly would be the same time investment as fixing compatibility issues. "What compatibility issues? Win11 is fine, I have had no problems." My coworkers say. Well on Day 1, 2 pretty important pieces of soft…

Why not just get LTSC? You get zero feature updates (ie. the breaking kind) pushed on you, but you still get security updates for up to 10 years.

LTSC is only in windows enterprise, but what any windows pro user should use if they want to avoid the bleeding edge is switch to CBB, which is generally a lot more stable than the consumer releases of windows (which effectively are public betas during their first few months).

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/...

Re: Never update anything

#186

Post by quickthrower2 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

benburton wrote: post #17

> Docker Desktop doesn't let you decide whether you want updates or not, unless you pay them This made me uninstall Docker Desktop.

That was so lol I had to post it to our #random and probably should have to r/assholedesign

Re: Never update anything

#187

Post by 02020202 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:16 AM UTC

if it works, don't try to fix it. for sure. the problem is with security updates which can trigger a massive dependency hell.

Re: Never update anything

#188

Post by scoopertrooper » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

nlitened wrote: post #165

scoopertrooper wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to blame AWS, but as the post you linked said, Postgres 9.6 is no longer going to be receiving updates from 11 November. What do you want AWS to do here? Keep running software that won't get security updates? That seems a bit wild to me. Communication could have been better, but there is no universe in which a managed database provider should be expected to continue to maintain instances with discontinued versio…

> What do you want AWS to do here? Keep running software that won't get security updates? That seems a bit wild to me. PostgreSQL is open source, so they could keep patching the old version with security fixes. Or... they could keep using just the community-supplied free-of-charge version and pocket all the money from not maintaining security patches themselves.

I agree AWS should be contributing back to the open source projects and they are listed as a 'sponsor' (though not a major one) on the Postgres website.

https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/sponsorship/

But AWS should not have to take responsibility for providing indefinite updates to every version of every managed open source project it operates. The only way I could see this working would be if AWS charged the holdouts the cost of keeping them supported.

However, performing RDS Postgres upgrades is relatively quick and painless process. If a company doesn't have the capacity to do that every five years, then it shouldn't be running its own infrastructure.

Re: Never update anything

#189

Post by quickthrower2 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:19 AM UTC

k__ wrote: post #72

Android: We update your system until it's too slow to use. Also, Android: One day we will stop giving you updates, so your apps can't talk to new versions of online services anymore.

Android: if you have a hobby app in the play store we’re gonna make you jump through stupid hoops to keep it alive every year or so (I just let mine die)

Re: Never update anything

#190

Post by chousuke » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 9:19 AM UTC

jart wrote: post #154

kouteiheika wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux do the same thing. [..] Then there's Linux where each GUI update is a radical break with tradition that continually reinvents its own identity. If you're using a "mainstream" desktop environment (e.g. GNOME), then yeah, but that's not universally true. I've been using exactly the same desktop environment for something like ~12 years; I love Linux because if you set it up right it's essentially zero maintenanc…

The forced changes to the init system and desktop gui are far more radical than anything Microsoft or Apple ever did. The init system change was also due to the GUI people. GNOME told everyone they must adopt SystemD or else you can't use GNOME anymore. It made people so unhappy there were forks, protests, and even suicides. If a system administrator woke up from a 15 year coma, they would have no clue how to use any…

Bah. If a sysadmin woke up from a coma, systemd would be the least of their worries, since it has a comprehensive manual, working backwards compatibility for most standard interfaces, and is in most cases much, much easier to deal with than what was before it.

They might scream in horror at how containers often get (ab)used though.