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Life is too short to depend on unstable software

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Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#111

Post by rodgerd »

jcelerier wrote: post #79
the_af wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even on windows you generally have to install the very latest GPU drivers when an AAA game comes out though

Sure. But I don't have to upgrade my whole userland from Win 10 to Win 11 for hardware compatibility. I don't have to upgrade my core OS to run a new version of Lightroom.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#112

Post by warner25 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #74

Honestly, I've had better luck on the bleeding edge. Newer Linux kernels almost always are better (and when they're not, it gets fixed quickly). Wayland is definitely better than X. Newer Gnome is better than old Gnome. Ruby 3 and 3.1 is definitely better than 2.7. Rails 7 is way better than 6, even in alpha state. Deno is nicer than Node (although the ecosystem needs to catch up). Hell, V8 and then Node led to a boo…

I do like to think that the effort put into software development with each iteration is actually making software better: optimizing performance, fixing bugs, closing security vulnerabilities, etc. So I've been happy with Arch-based distros and most Windows updates, at least. When I take the long-term view, I'm amazed by the improvements in software since I started using a computer in the 1990s. Many more things "just work" now (e.g. Linux on a laptop). Home computer operating systems and applications can run for years now without breaking, whereas reinstalling everything (e.g. the cesspool of Windows 95/98/XP) was almost a monthly requirement back in the day. An operating system that used to take 5-10 minutes to fully boot now takes only seconds on a typical machine.

I know that this isn't always true. Sometimes it's just feature bloat, or a design change for the sake of design change, which introduces more bugs and vulnerabilities.

Maybe what I really want is the newest version of the software that I already have, as opposed to the newest software.

At work we still use Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 on some mission-critical systems. So that's version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel with equally old applications, and I'm not sure what we get for updates from the vendor in 2021. The problem is that there are recurring bugs and serious vulnerabilities in that system which will never get fixed at this point. You could argue that we know what the bugs are, at least.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#113

Post by revskill »

My project used RoR 4, React 1.5, PostgreSQL 9.6 and Solr since 2012 and still running stably in production.

Such a beautiful tech stack and it's still my recommendation for any junior programmers to learn on how to do the fullstack development the right way (before jumping on more bleeding edge stuffs).

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#114

Post by bitexploder »

revskill wrote: post #113

My project used RoR 4, React 1.5, PostgreSQL 9.6 and Solr since 2012 and still running stably in production. Such a beautiful tech stack and it's still my recommendation for any junior programmers to learn on how to do the fullstack development the right way (before jumping on more bleeding edge stuffs).

Python, Django, etc is similarly good. Elastic search or Solr. I don’t even use React… just Bootstrap and plain HTML+CSS where I can. Front end work makes me sad inside. Celery for distributed work. Redis for this and that cause it’s so stupid reliable and easy to use and manage. Ansible to configure and deploy stuff. One repo. There was a great post on here about boring tech stacks, and their stack was our stack almost exactly. It’s stuff one human can wrap their arms around me build meaningful software with.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#115

Post by revskill »

bitexploder wrote: post #114
revskill wrote: post #113

My project used RoR 4, React 1.5, PostgreSQL 9.6 and Solr since 2012 and still running stably in production. Such a beautiful tech stack and it's still my recommendation for any junior programmers to learn on how to do the fullstack development the right way (before jumping on more bleeding edge stuffs).

Python, Django, etc is similarly good. Elastic search or Solr. I don’t even use React… just Bootstrap and plain HTML+CSS where I can. Front end work makes me sad inside. Celery for distributed work. Redis for this and that cause it’s so stupid reliable and easy to use and manage. Ansible to configure and deploy stuff. One repo. There was a great post on here about boring tech stacks, and their stack was our stack alm…

Python is bad (mostly) as it taught python dev much hate on Javascript, which is a must for user experience.

Most of python programmers i've known and met hate frontend work, and that's why their products are not optimal for user experience, so bad software in general.

The point is, to become a senior programmer, one must learn to do fullstack work, from css to deployment.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#116

Post by simpsond »

dimgl wrote: post #61

I've been thinking about learning Crystal recently and using it for a personal project. However, now that I have lots of experience with Node.js, Golang and others, I'm torn between the "use what's mature" and "learn a new language" decision. Sure, I'm using Crystal now to learn a new language, but what if this becomes a serious project? Anyhow, I agree with this blog post somewhat but it's always good to expand your…

If it becomes serious, and crystal becomes a problem, then you can always port it. What are the odds of both those things happening? Give it a shot.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#117

Post by pornel »

People often conflate stability with stagnation.

When you have poorly written software, then old versions of it are "stable" only because people have already learned how to live with and work around its obvious bugs. Updating means learning to live with new bugs, which is seen as instability, but it's just the same software again.

OTOH if you're dealing with reliable software with a low defect rate, then all versions are "stable". Updating it isn't painful, and you can expect it to improve things without introducing new bugs.

For example: autotools is "stable", but in the stagnant sense. I use it by googling weird error messages. OTOH cargo is "stable" in the well-tested sense. The newer the better. I can use its nightly build and expect it to work with my every project.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#118

Post by bitexploder »

revskill wrote: post #115
bitexploder wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python, Django, etc is similarly good. Elastic search or Solr. I don’t even use React… just Bootstrap and plain HTML+CSS where I can. Front end work makes me sad inside. Celery for distributed work. Redis for this and that cause it’s so stupid reliable and easy to use and manage. Ansible to configure and deploy stuff. One repo. There was a great post on here about boring tech stacks, and their stack was our stack alm…

Python is bad (mostly) as it taught python dev much hate on Javascript, which is a must for user experience. Most of python programmers i've known and met hate frontend work, and that's why their products are not optimal for user experience, so bad software in general. The point is, to become a senior programmer, one must learn to do fullstack work, from css to deployment.

Genuinely curious, how is Ruby any better there? You can build usable front ends in either language. I care about delivering usable software. Interactive front ends for the sake of it is not a good use of effort. If your app and situation justify it, okay, but it isn’t a hard requirement like many other aspects of full stack. Just depends on what you need for good UX. A pile of Javascript isn’t a requirement there. I also stopped caring about developer titles a long time ago, that is a straw man. Real full stack devs with adequate experience in every aspect are unicorns anyway.

E: I don’t even hate JS it’s fine, just not a great investment of time for a lot of apps. And the ecosystem and getting it deployed is an absolute chore.

Re: Life is too short to depend on unstable software

#120

Post by tomnipotent »

winternett wrote: post #56
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…

A huge dimension concerning the decision on using "unvetted" and/or "cutting edge" technology is how MISSION CRITICAL the system you are creating is... Building a new social media app as a startup? _Depends on the data you're storing for users and how you market the stability of the system to your user base. Building a new Government healthcare system? _You better use properly vetted technologies. This includes using…

> Building a new Government healthcare system? _You better use properly vetted technologies.

Is there any evidence these systems are more stable and dependable?

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