4 ms·

Not uncommon for these kind of giant step backwards in the world of computing. I was in a plane the other day sitting next to an elderly gentleman who saw me u

by GuiA 9y ago

Not uncommon for these kind of giant step backwards in the world of computing. I was in a plane the other day sitting next to an elderly gentleman who saw me using Apple products. He then proceeded to tell me how he's been on mac since 1984, and absolutely loved Apple products before, but now he's stuck on OS X 10.6 because it's the last version that supports AppleWorks, a tool he's been using for over 20 years. No currently supported tool gives him the flexibility and power he had with Apple Works - embedding multiple documents of different types (spreadsheet, word processing, etc) within one another, not to mention the thousands of AppleWorks documents he's accumulated over the years. However, most websites and new products don't work on 10.6, so he has another modern computer just for browsing the web. (George R R Martin similarly has an old computer sitting around just to use his favorite 20 year old word processor of choice) Flash is similar - I have animator friends who maintain an old copy of Windows XP because they love Flash's interface and no other tool comes close. The news yesterday about MSPaint potentially going away (I think MS back pedaled on it?) falls in the same category - powerful tools that pretty much can't be improved upon that get randomly EoL'd. Another thing that happens pretty often - tools randomly losing functionality in an update because the developer felt that it should be removed for whatever reason. Maybe there would be a niche for a minimal Linux distro that comes with a set of powerful, minimalistic creation tools (office documents, multimedia manipulation + viewing, etc - whatever covers the computing needs of 90% of the population) that gets updated with security updates etc but has 1) backwards compatibility and 2) a user interface that mostly never changes as primary goals.

zippergz 9y ago
My experience is that the "whatever reason" to remove features is that they're a pain to maintain (often in ways that aren't obvious to the end user) and only a tiny number of people use them. It sucks for the people who do use them (and believe me, I have been in that position myself), but it also sucks to not have new development happen because all of the resources are being consumed maintaining something that 10 people care about.
ianai 9y ago
You can chalk that up to a market failure. Those products you mentioned all "won" the market and enjoyed monopolistic power. Had the economy allowed for more variety then their EOLs wouldn't be fragmenting.
felideon 9y ago
> tools randomly losing functionality in an update because the developer felt that it should be removed for whatever reason. More likely a Product Manager, rather than a developer, prioritizing certain "core" features in a rewrite/redesign to align with the product/corporate strategy better. (Unless you meant "developer" in the very generic sense, or an indie developer.)
justinsaccount 9y ago
> MSPaint potentially going away (I think MS back pedaled on it?) falls in the same category - powerful tools that pretty much can't be improved upon MSPaint is a powerful tool? Do you also consider notepad a powerful editor?
- adl 9y ago
  Being ubiquitous is a kind of power (just like Javascript).
akoncius 9y ago
main reason why products are discontinued usually is that it's not worth for company to maintain old product if user base is small or decreasing and product is not profitable anymore. Even if company is not actively developing new features in that software, still it requires maintenance - fixing bugs, updating libraries to keep it working with new OSes and so on, and it has a huge cost, assuming that there are big teams dedicated to products. Also sometimes vision changes for whole company and existing products does not fit that vision anymore and company decides to kill it. Regarding "never changing" software idea: it inherently is doomed because by default user base will be shrinking - majority of people would move on newer (with better features) software and only handful of users would continue using old "not changing" software. It's jut not worth it, and is too small niche.

by GuiA 9y ago

zippergz 9y ago

My experience is that the "whatever reason" to remove features is that they're a pain to maintain (often in ways that aren't obvious to the end user) and only a tiny number of people use them. It sucks for the people who do use them (and believe me, I have been in that position myself), but it also sucks to not have new development happen because all of the resources are being consumed maintaining something that 10 people care about.

ianai 9y ago

You can chalk that up to a market failure. Those products you mentioned all "won" the market and enjoyed monopolistic power. Had the economy allowed for more variety then their EOLs wouldn't be fragmenting.

felideon 9y ago

> tools randomly losing functionality in an update because the developer felt that it should be removed for whatever reason. More likely a Product Manager, rather than a developer, prioritizing certain "core" features in a rewrite/redesign to align with the product/corporate strategy better. (Unless you meant "developer" in the very generic sense, or an indie developer.)

justinsaccount 9y ago

> MSPaint potentially going away (I think MS back pedaled on it?) falls in the same category - powerful tools that pretty much can't be improved upon MSPaint is a powerful tool? Do you also consider notepad a powerful editor?

adl 9y ago
Being ubiquitous is a kind of power (just like Javascript).

akoncius 9y ago

main reason why products are discontinued usually is that it's not worth for company to maintain old product if user base is small or decreasing and product is not profitable anymore. Even if company is not actively developing new features in that software, still it requires maintenance - fixing bugs, updating libraries to keep it working with new OSes and so on, and it has a huge cost, assuming that there are big teams dedicated to products. Also sometimes vision changes for whole company and existing products does not fit that vision anymore and company decides to kill it. Regarding "never changing" software idea: it inherently is doomed because by default user base will be shrinking - majority of people would move on newer (with better features) software and only handful of users would continue using old "not changing" software. It's jut not worth it, and is too small niche.