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Life is too short to depend on unstable software

blog.sidebits.tech

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Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#11

Post by todd3834 »

I know that titles have to be written to capture attention but I was really hoping there was going to be a story here. Something about how someone realized in their old age that the use of unstable software was a big regret. Sounded pretty odd so I clicked through to see. I was disappointed it was just an article about backward compatibility and preferring 3rd party libraries.

I’m sure on my deathbed software will not be coming to mind but if it did I’ll probably wish I took more chances on some crazy things like beta iOS ;-p

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#12

Post by intrasight »

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?

The human body is an unstable platform that doctors make money off. Lawyers make money off the unstable legal platform. So it's been the case for thousands of years. Even better in recent times as you need a license to work that unstable platform;)

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#14

Post by sovietmudkipz »

todd3834 wrote: post #11

I know that titles have to be written to capture attention but I was really hoping there was going to be a story here. Something about how someone realized in their old age that the use of unstable software was a big regret. Sounded pretty odd so I clicked through to see. I was disappointed it was just an article about backward compatibility and preferring 3rd party libraries. I’m sure on my deathbed software will no…

On my deathbed I don’t think I’ll think about software… But if I do I think my biggest regret will be not embracing event driven software design sooner.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#15

Post by passerby1 »

outsomnia wrote: post #10

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…

It's probably a bit blind to think that there's only one way to contribute by fixing issues. However, the new feature development is very important too, and it usually it does not necessary require a testing or beta channel.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#16

Post by bool3max »

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?

> Am I reading this right?

You're not. There may be no correlation between the platform being bad and it being profitable. If it happens to be bad, don't let your career depend upon it, unless it also happens to generate revenue for you.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#17

Post by hsn915 »

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?

Without context I think the part after unless is sort of sarcastic or ironic.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#18

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

the_af wrote: post #6
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.

This is a flaw in Linux Desktops' choice of application management paradigms, which insists that everything be tightly coupled and managed. It is entirely possible and reasonable to have a stable set of base system libraries everyone can depend on and otherwise applications must bring their own.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#19

Post by hsn915 »

outsomnia wrote: post #10

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…

Thank you for confirmin that "Free and Open Source" does not value stability or quality.

I'd rather pay for a closed program that comes with guarantees of stability and quality than participate in a community that considers these concerns tertiarty or off the menu entirely.

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