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Software Updates

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Re: Software Updates

#71
post #17

Software getting worse, just out of my head: - VS2019 removed at least two important features from VS2017 (export of profiler results and the concurrency profiler) - Firefox "new" extension API still means you can't remove the top tab bar from tree style tabs (best FF extension) without hacks - Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. They popup when opening a word document. When pluggin in my Camera. And no…

I guess what we see is in part due to the transition towards more and more ”highlevel”. Now don’t get me wrong here, ”high level” in general is supposed to make life easier for developers, more rapid development and for corporate a better ROI. The downside is that it requires less understanding of the underlaying foundations (it hides it on purpose) from the developers/engineers.

Now I’m not saying that ”high level engineers” are less engineers than others, but it’s not surprising that we’re moving in the direction we’re moving. It’s by design.

(Now this doesn’t explain everything, far from it, but IMO it’s why we see an image writer weighting in on 300MB compared to a C/C++ version at <1MB)

Re: Software Updates

#72

I just tried to fastlane a new beta version of my flutter iOS app up to the app store today. It got rejected by Apple because I was using Xcode 11.2, which was released on Nov 1st. Apparently, on Nov 5th Apple released 11.2.1, but still haven't put it in the App Store. I didn't know about it. Ended up being a 7.3gb download and about 10 minutes to extract the .xip file on my 12 core 2.9ghz macbook pro. The struggle i…

The last 3 Xcode updates have always failed to install for me. Of course it downloads the full 7-8 GB before failing. My only solution thus far is to delete Xcode and then the App Store sees it as an install instead of an upgrade, which works.

Re: Software Updates

#73
post #17

Software getting worse, just out of my head: - VS2019 removed at least two important features from VS2017 (export of profiler results and the concurrency profiler) - Firefox "new" extension API still means you can't remove the top tab bar from tree style tabs (best FF extension) without hacks - Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. They popup when opening a word document. When pluggin in my Camera. And no…

> Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. OT, but does anyone know if there is an API-shim for dropbox integrations? I use YNAB classic and that’s the only reason I have dropbox and it is utterly horrible. edit: I just deleted dropbox. I’ll sync YNAB manually instead. Dropbox behaves like malware.

Doesn’t YNAB have its own sync?

Re: Software Updates

#74
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. OT, but does anyone know if there is an API-shim for dropbox integrations? I use YNAB classic and that’s the only reason I have dropbox and it is utterly horrible. edit: I just deleted dropbox. I’ll sync YNAB manually instead. Dropbox behaves like malware.

I don't know if it would help, but I use Mountain Duck ($) to map cloud storage as a network drive.

I've used odrive since it launched, and have never installed any native sync tools since. It's exactly what I want cloud sync to be.

Re: Software Updates

#75
post #36

Things i tried to keep using way longer than most: -windows 7 (upgraded only for widi support - and i miss them) - skype (i d never upgrade if i could) - photoshop standalone (still use it) - office 2007 ( still use it) - dropbox (no option there) - old reddit - iphone 6 - jquery (plan to avoid npm until it dies of natural causes) - windows movie maker / photos In fact it s getting harder to think of things that are…

>- office 2007

Mon dieu. What witchcraft have you invoked to keep that working for so long? Surely not on the same computer for all these years? I feel like MS Office was total garbage until they hit v2013.

Re: Software Updates

#76
post #71
post #17

Software getting worse, just out of my head: - VS2019 removed at least two important features from VS2017 (export of profiler results and the concurrency profiler) - Firefox "new" extension API still means you can't remove the top tab bar from tree style tabs (best FF extension) without hacks - Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. They popup when opening a word document. When pluggin in my Camera. And no…

I guess what we see is in part due to the transition towards more and more ”highlevel”. Now don’t get me wrong here, ”high level” in general is supposed to make life easier for developers, more rapid development and for corporate a better ROI. The downside is that it requires less understanding of the underlaying foundations (it hides it on purpose) from the developers/engineers. Now I’m not saying that ”high level e…

That would put form over function , and would be dangerous. There is no reason to go "high level" just to convenience the engineers (except perhaps being able to hire cheaper, less qualified ones). The tradeoffs can be dangerous. Imagine this kind of fragility being installed in robocars.

Re: Software Updates

#77
post #17

Software getting worse, just out of my head: - VS2019 removed at least two important features from VS2017 (export of profiler results and the concurrency profiler) - Firefox "new" extension API still means you can't remove the top tab bar from tree style tabs (best FF extension) without hacks - Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. They popup when opening a word document. When pluggin in my Camera. And no…

Some of these are "power" vs "everyday" user optimizations. The one that jumps out to me is Skype. I had read some case studies of their redesign where they stated that 90%+ of Skype users only have two or three Skype contacts, and they use it to talk to their family members.

The redesign optimized for that and as a result you, I and everyone else with hundreds of contacts lost our collective minds.

I 100% get that it's worse for you (and me too) but I think it's important to look at what they were actually trying to do and it makes sense.

Re: Software Updates

#78
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even stable APIs may need security fixes. I'm not convinced a world where APIs continue forever and their exploits do too would be much better than what we have. And I say that as someone who has just accidentally lost an expensive, fully-working piece of audio hardware to an ill-advised software upgrade.

I'm fairly confident that the vast majority of functionality broken by updates have not in any way been related to security mitigations.

That wasn't the point I was trying to make. I was trying to point out that ideally you could just leave the old API there for old software to use and build a new API for new software to use. If it wasn't for security bugs you could leave the old API untouched. Sadly, security issues prevent this and after a while it becomes uneconomical to supply even security fixes. This is why hardware that relies on software has an operational life shorter than the hardware itself has.

Re: Software Updates

#79
post #36

Things i tried to keep using way longer than most: -windows 7 (upgraded only for widi support - and i miss them) - skype (i d never upgrade if i could) - photoshop standalone (still use it) - office 2007 ( still use it) - dropbox (no option there) - old reddit - iphone 6 - jquery (plan to avoid npm until it dies of natural causes) - windows movie maker / photos In fact it s getting harder to think of things that are…

>- office 2007 Mon dieu. What witchcraft have you invoked to keep that working for so long? Surely not on the same computer for all these years? I feel like MS Office was total garbage until they hit v2013.

Hmm , i just checked my version,yes it's 2007. I use it often and even share version-tracked documents with others back and forth for years. Mendeley works, everything else works. Why change ?

Re: Software Updates

#80
post #17

Software getting worse, just out of my head: - VS2019 removed at least two important features from VS2017 (export of profiler results and the concurrency profiler) - Firefox "new" extension API still means you can't remove the top tab bar from tree style tabs (best FF extension) without hacks - Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. They popup when opening a word document. When pluggin in my Camera. And no…

> Imgur is a joke and became what it was literally founded to avoid

It literally fails utterly at the singular thing it is supposed to do. Makes me feel less bad about my own managerial driven development.

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