81–90 of 112 posts
I stopped letting my iPhone update. I swear every update makes it slower and buggier. My old iPad which was perfectly fast and great at the time is now almost unusable after 4 iOS upgrades. It won't even play Sudoko without constant mini freezes.
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…
But on the other hand, if the software is stable and no longer needs updating why force small inconsequential changes just to appear to be maintained? Just release when there's something to release.
Software can only be as correct and complete as its specification. If that is a moving target, oops!
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…
If it needs a fix, update it.
If you want to increase awareness, add a feature.
If people are paying a software support fee or have a contract stating a certain number of releases a year then do releases.
Otherwise why risk introducing new problems
People expect their software to improve over time, and thus receive updates, and this is perfectly reasonable. Most software is never "done". If it is a small module written in a highly mature language and operating in a stable, slow moving ecosystem, then fine. In those cases, simply document that updates will be few and far between and that this is expected for the above reasons. More likely, development simply slo…
To my knowledge, they all still do exactly what I made them to do. Are there things I would like to add to some of them if I had unlimited time? Yes. Does not having time to do that mean that they've stopped doing what they were designed to do? No.
The only time I can see an argument for frequent updates being required (as opposed to a bonus) is for software with direct dependencies on other things. youtube-dl, for example, or the NTDS.dit-extracting functionality in Impacket are good examples of this - they work directly with content that may change at any time, so someone needs to make sure they're compatible with the current versions of that content.
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…
There's kind of a parallel with signals regarding businesses as well. There may be nothing wrong with a store that hasn't been renovated since the 90s, but it gives off a "run-down" vibe like it wouldn't be there much longer.
I gave up on Windows about 10 years ago. I've had to use it for work sometimes, but the Windows Updates are actually destructive sometimes, and often take hours to install during business hours (especially if you happen to need to reboot before an important meeting...). I can't handle uncertainty in Software, and I think that many business are losing productivity because of this. Or maybe IT support departments are h…
I stopped letting my iPhone update. I swear every update makes it slower and buggier. My old iPad which was perfectly fast and great at the time is now almost unusable after 4 iOS upgrades. It won't even play Sudoko without constant mini freezes.
People would rather use a functional but insecure tool than a broken secure one. No question. It's hard for devs to understand that for some reason.
Also they know when and why to update stuff they work on, thus i never happens at an inopportune time. Nor do they find themselves having to wrangle the new dependency kudzu they created, because for them it built up over time.
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..
But there are other ways to build software. You can make apps with very few dependencies, use stable APIs only, program defensively, make sure you properly read the docs and handle all error conditions, don’t add unnecessary features, etc. The result can be an app that requires minimal maintenance and it might work for years without any changes at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not applying a security update is willingly leaving a known security hole in place. At best, you are making your system insecure, and at worst, you are putting others on your network and/or in your social circles at risk.
or.... You are trying to avoid an update that is going to break your machine/workflow. If security updates were sent along a different channel than feature updates, this wouldn't be an issue. But companies keep tying these together, and there are only so many features you can carelessly break before users become aware of what you are really doing.
This mentality is what led to Windows XP sticking around long after being declared dead.