71–80 of 112 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software is very rarely perfect though. There are some rare cases like Winamp and Photoshop where there's just not much to add. I do find projects like Dwarf Fortress very charming in that there's an endless supply of new things to look forward to.
Photoshop has a new release every year or so, usually with new features.
I can see the angle as a developer that there isn't anything new this week/month/quarter in the software. And I can see the user angle that if it hasn't been updated perhaps updates are no longer available.
That makes me wonder if an update that says the software continues to be in good shape (a non-update update) would assuage the user. Something like that could be automated and so not impact the developer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no software without bugs. People seem to know that. Developers sometimes do not.
There are projects that are close to bugfree, though. You can use a 3 year old version of sqlite without any difficulty. I don't know what version of "ls" or "mkdir" my machine runs, but I never worry about these simple utilities being out of date or behaving differently in release/staging. These utilities are essentially done, and 30 years from now they'll still work fine. There is no software without bugs in the sa…
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…
While some may think I have misinterpreted the blog author (and I acknowledge this is a valid response), I still think that bug or nondescript "security fixes" is a powerful, fear-based mechanism to compel users to allow updates -- of any kind. And it therefore relevant to any discussion of "updates". Especially when it is common for these bug or "security fixes" to be inextricably mixed with non-security items such as "features" in such a way that the user must except the "whole hog", perhaps in some way similar to "omnibus legislation" in the US Congress.
I respect everyone's opinions whether you agree with me or not. I am just happy to see that some users may be thinking about "updates" and what they really are instead of blindly accepting them without ever pausing to think.
From my perspective every new "feature" that adds code is also introducing a new potential for a bug or security issue. I want programs and systems to get smaller not larger.
E.g. https://github.com/dardoria/uuid a library to generate UUIDs: once it fulfills the spec properly, it's essentially done. This particular example could contain a bug, of course, but the principle stands.
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…
I wouldn't call myself very experienced, but software is really brittle and everything is built on top of something else, so an update triggers an update triggers an update..
The result can be an app that requires minimal maintenance and it might work for years without any changes at all.
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 most important thing is that I need to be reassured that if a major bug is discovered in the software I’m using, then it will be fixed. How can I be sure of that? The absolutely simplest way is if the software releases regular updates with very small changes. It’s a heartbeat to let people know there is someone that will solve the future problem.
I don’t even need to install these updates! They are mostly symbolic, that doesn’t make them irrelevant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no software without bugs. People seem to know that. Developers sometimes do not.
There are projects that are close to bugfree, though. You can use a 3 year old version of sqlite without any difficulty. I don't know what version of "ls" or "mkdir" my machine runs, but I never worry about these simple utilities being out of date or behaving differently in release/staging. These utilities are essentially done, and 30 years from now they'll still work fine. There is no software without bugs in the sa…
Or bugfree for the use cases of it's users (how many or few there may be).