11–20 of 112 posts
> So for non-security critical software, it is sometimes better not to update that often. This update fever is bad both for developers and users. What software is non-security critical anymore?
LaTeX, MATLAB, CMake...
Glad to see this being written. "Trained" is the word I have thought of many times as well. It is perplexing to see people wanting updates. It is possible to write finished programs that are bug-free[FN1]. But when eternal rounds of patching becomes a religion, what sort of standard are developers promoting? Every program is expected to have security holes that will need to be patched? What about not releasing softwa…
The updates that are causing the fever are not just "bugfixes", they are the current state of living software--always expanding and improving (at least in intent). The fact users see software that hasn't been updated as dead is a reflection of their learned expectations. And they are correct, it likely is dead in the "no longer improving as my other software is" sense.
The real issue I have is how shitty most update processes are. Thanks for rebooting my PC Win 10, yes Sublime Text, please tell me again in a dialog that there is an update, etc. Some apps have done much better here like Chrome and Discord, but it is not an easy thing to build.
Glad to see this being written. "Trained" is the word I have thought of many times as well. It is perplexing to see people wanting updates. It is possible to write finished programs that are bug-free[FN1]. But when eternal rounds of patching becomes a religion, what sort of standard are developers promoting? Every program is expected to have security holes that will need to be patched? What about not releasing softwa…
Whether or not software can be finished with 0 bugs is sort of irrelevant. Windows and other software users use most will basically never be "finished". The updates that are causing the fever are not just "bugfixes", they are the current state of living software--always expanding and improving (at least in intent). The fact users see software that hasn't been updated as dead is a reflection of their learned expectati…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether or not software can be finished with 0 bugs is sort of irrelevant. Windows and other software users use most will basically never be "finished". The updates that are causing the fever are not just "bugfixes", they are the current state of living software--always expanding and improving (at least in intent). The fact users see software that hasn't been updated as dead is a reflection of their learned expectati…
The question - and what the article is arguing is about - is if the "no longer improving as my other software is" part makes sense. Does software always have to change (not necessarily improve as software will become worse almost as often as it'll become better - especially when it comes to GUI programs that often tend to shuffle things around, invalidating the users' knowledge)?
The trouble I still see is that most software is barely held together built on top of stuff that is even worse. From my experience, if it is running on Android or Windows, it is 100% guaranteed you will have an issue you didn't predict because some set of users have done something crazy to their device. I guess you could always leave these things broken for a while, but it would reflect poorly and is hard to convince others that "oh this crash is ok".
I guess tl;dr I think most software is broken and always broken and updating more or less frequently wouldn't really change the brokenness for users, but the frequent updates at least give them hope fixes are coming and their feedback matters. Knowing you'll have this bug forever makes any alternative attractive.
Glad to see this being written. "Trained" is the word I have thought of many times as well. It is perplexing to see people wanting updates. It is possible to write finished programs that are bug-free[FN1]. But when eternal rounds of patching becomes a religion, what sort of standard are developers promoting? Every program is expected to have security holes that will need to be patched? What about not releasing softwa…
> There is such a thing as finished software. With no major bugs. That does not need constant updates. The general attitude (both on HN and elsewhere) is that if any security update exists for a product you use then you are a complete moron not to update it immediately. There is virtually no acknowledgment of any nuance on the topic in my experience.
> So for non-security critical software, it is sometimes better not to update that often. This update fever is bad both for developers and users. What software is non-security critical anymore?
> What software is non-security critical anymore? LaTeX, MATLAB, CMake...
"git clone foo && cmake foo" can definitely be a security problem, and not just because the code itself is untrusted.
I actually don't think there is anything wrong with having time-based releases, and putting very little content in some of them. If you only fix one bug in a quarterly/bi-annual release and tweak some docs, because that's all that's needed, you have still fixed an issue for somebody, and demonstrated to all of your other users that you are still keeping your commitments, and there for them if they need you.
> So for non-security critical software, it is sometimes better not to update that often. This update fever is bad both for developers and users. What software is non-security critical anymore?
Software updates are a kind of project heartbeat. The content of them is less important than the signal, "this project is still alive, and maintainers are fixing issues for people". If a project does not put out updates, then users may (understandably) worry that if they have an issue, it won't get addressed promptly. I actually don't think there is anything wrong with having time-based releases, and putting very lit…
Just release when there's something to release.