Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#1

Post by mooreds » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 12:39 PM UTC

Life is too short to depend on unstable software
blog.sidebits.tech

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#2

Post by jabl » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

Related talk distilled into a blog(gish?) post: http://boringtechnology.club/

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#3

Post by fendy3002 » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

Well the title mention unstable software but the article discussed about library or API.

Topic wise, backwards compatibility is indeed really important and useful. However to achieve stable API takes long time and effort.

You're either use the tooling now and risking changes albeit small (honestly almost everything programming related has breaking changes at one point), or roll your own API.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#4

Post by the_af » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

In theory we all mostly agree with this: stable, well understood software is to be preferred.

In practice, it's not true most businesses or teams want newer software just to be "on the bleeding edge". The bleeding edge is not a goal on its own. What usually happens is that you need a feature (for actual business reasons) that is not available in the older version of the software you are using; or there is a serious bug that is only fixed on the "bleeding edge" version and is nontrivial to backport.

So you often have two choices: make the change yourself in the stable version (risky, time consuming, and can it be considered "stable" anymore once you mess with it?) or move to an unstable version (risky, new bugs).

And that's assuming the software is open source; if it's proprietary you have even fewer choices...

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#5

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #4

In theory we all mostly agree with this: stable, well understood software is to be preferred. In practice , it's not true most businesses or teams want newer software just to be "on the bleeding edge". The bleeding edge is not a goal on its own. What usually happens is that you need a feature (for actual business reasons) that is not available in the older version of the software you are using; or there is a serious…

How badly do you really need that feature? Why did no one need it a couple of years ago?

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#6

Post by the_af » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #4

In theory we all mostly agree with this: stable, well understood software is to be preferred. In practice , it's not true most businesses or teams want newer software just to be "on the bleeding edge". The bleeding edge is not a goal on its own. What usually happens is that you need a feature (for actual business reasons) that is not available in the older version of the software you are using; or there is a serious…

For personal use, here's the same thing again. Say a Linux user wants to play a game. The stable old version of their distro doesn't play well with the libs/drivers needed to play the game.

So the user must install a newer, less tested, distro. But the goal was not to be "on the bleeding edge" for its own sake; it's playing the game, and there's no other (easy) way.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#7

Post by thrower123 » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

And yet everything is built on web services nowadays that break contracts and change behaviour constantly.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#8

Post by akudha » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

don’t ever let your career depend on an unstable platform and tooling unless you directly profit from that instability.

Woah, unstable platform is bad, unless it makes you money? Am I reading this right?

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#9

Post by bruce343434 » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #8

don’t ever let your career depend on an unstable platform and tooling unless you directly profit from that instability. Woah, unstable platform is bad, unless it makes you money? Am I reading this right?

It's just good business advice.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#10

Post by outsomnia » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

Users of only "stable" FOSS releases almost never contribute, in code, or to its health or longevity. They are leeching it, sometimes over decades.

They don't contribute to testing either, since they just consume releases and ignore development, then wonder loudly why there are bugs.

Don't be that guy... if you want your dependencies to have a long life being maintained, find some time to contribute. Leeching is not contribution.