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0 pointsrtpg2y ago0 comments

The problem with bug full updating software is usually that they don’t release changes fast enough, ironically.

Apple routinely holds back changes for a .0 release for advertising reasons. This means that they routinely have big releases that break everything at once. Bugs could come from 4 or 5 different sets of changes. But if they spread out changes… bug sources would be way more easy to identify.

And bug fix velocity going up could mean people stop treading water on bugs, and actually get to making changes to avoid entire classes of bugs!

Instead, people think the way to avoid bugs is to avoid updates, or do it all at once. This leads to iOS .0 releases being garbage, users of non-rolling release Linux distros to have bugs in their software that were fixed upstream years ago, and ultimately to make it harder to actually fix bugs.

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ndriscoll2y ago

As a user, my problem is that I receive functional or design changes that I didn't want and that make the software worse for me. So I tend to avoid updates. e.g. the last time I updated Android was for that webp cve. Otherwise I just want it to stay the way it was when I bought it, not how some new product designer wants to make it to show their "impact". Especially when it's things like "we're going to silently uninstall your apps (Google) and/or delete your files (Apple) and add nag screens when you turn off our malware (Google again) or add ads (Microsoft)".

I do regularly install updates on my (Linux) desktop/laptop because guess what? It consistently works exactly the same afterward. Occasionally new formats like jxl images just start working everywhere or something. But otherwise it has just continued to work unchanging with no fanfare for the last decade or so. It's amazing to me how much higher quality in that way volunteer software is compared to commercial software.

pyeri2y ago

This means they should either push updates quickly on an ongoing basis, or not push them at all and provide service packs at regular intervals like Windows XP and 7 used to do.

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ndriscoll2y ago

pyeri2y ago

This means they should either push updates quickly on an ongoing basis, or not push them at all and provide service packs at regular intervals like Windows XP and 7 used to do.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse