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For 11 years I’ve been selling a Mac app I created. It does get monotonous working on the same code base for so long. I find it unenjoyable having to update the

For 11 years I’ve been selling a Mac app I created. It does get monotonous working on the same code base for so long. I find it unenjoyable having to update the app to keep up with modern UI trends, and to cope with changes to the OS. Things that have happened in the last 11 years include the death of PowerPC support, the introduction of GateKeeper, the introduction and apparent temporary neglect of the Mac Apple Store, the switch to make codesigning effectively required, and the end of life of Apple’s own Java distribution (which was bundled with macOS until a few years ago). Dealing with these takes time but doesn’t really make my product better. I typically need to have an update ready by the time Apple releases a major OS update, or I’ll have frustrated customers. This is something I didn’t realise I was committing to when I created version 1 back in 2008.

coldtea 8y ago
Isn't that part and parcel with running a business? Else it would be "write once in 2008 and print money for eternity".
- csallen 8y ago
  It's easier developing for the web, where your code is less likely to break or require drastic changes over time. But yes, almost all businesses need at least some ongoing maintenance.
  - Aloha 8y ago
    Try running a PHP app from 2008, today, and let me know how that works for you. There are decent odds it wont run well on modern versions - I can go down and look at every other web technology and point out the same thing - no computer program lives in stasis (except possible on z/OS)
    - rpeden 8y ago
      OTOH, an ASP.NET web app written in 2008 and not touched since then would probably still run happily now if you bumped its version up to .NET 4 or 4.5. C# has had Linq and lambdas since 2007 so there's a decent chance the code would be decently pleasant to work with, too. Some devs might find 2008 Web Forms apps a bit crufty in 2018 but if you squint and pretend your .aspx is inside a render method issued of a separate file, the mental model isn't all that different from a SPA.
      - cm2187 8y ago
        With .net core the writing is on the wall that the full .net framework will go the way of .net 1.1 (the .net team highlighted that it is too burdensome to maintain both frameworks in parallel). I am not sure that the new Microsoft has the same commitment to support legacy code than the Microsoft of the last 20 years.
        oldmanhorton 8y ago
        They've made it clear that .NET Framework will be supported for many, many years. It just won't be getting as many new features. The point of the discussion here is about depreciating and removing and breaking existing tech, which will almost certainly not happen with .NET anything. Note that even VBScript still gets security updates. It's unimaginable that anything targeting .NET Framework will break (short of a bug) for at least a decade, and probably much longer.
    - cwyers 8y ago
      That's still just one runtime needing support at a time. OS upgrades happen in waves, and at a cadence you don't choose. Hosted server products, you choose when to update the server stack and you can stop supporting older versions.
  - z3t4 8y ago
    for static semantic html its stable. but for dynamic web sites with JavaScript there can be breaking changes. it can get tricky when you do hacky stuff in order to support all platform and older browsers.
- boudewijnrempt 8y ago
  Of course not. If you're developing software, you want to spend the time on improving your offering, not porting to the latest, greatest fad. Every minute I, as a software developer, have to spend on porting my application to a new version of the platform is a minute I'm not improving my application. It's churn, it's waste, it's fire-and-motion: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/
- ken 8y ago
  Of every platform I've used, macOS makes this the toughest. I appreciate that I have to put in work to add features, fix bugs, and support new OS functionality. But Macintosh is the only one I use where a new OS release means a method call that worked fine with a default param value for the past 8 years causes an instant crash with the latest major OS (with no indication of any change in the documentation or release notes). I'm not even at the point where I can support the latest macOS functionality, because I'm still working around the previous round of deprecations. There are big sections I simply have to rewrite because the old way is going away, and the new way has a completely different structure. It's also the only system where I basically need to upgrade my (OS, IDE, compiler, language) tuple all at once -- which means this is all tied to the hardware, too. Never before have I had to do a firmware upgrade in order to use the latest syntax in a programming language. My graphics card won't be powerful enough to run the next version of the compiler, even though the software generally gets more efficient with every release. Zany. It really does seem strange when a new CPU architecture is the least significant change I've ever had to deal with as a developer.
flag_bcz_mad 8y ago
It boggles the mind that Apple with all its billions does not maintain the MAC App Store. It also baffles me that their products have so many bugs.

coldtea 8y ago

Isn't that part and parcel with running a business? Else it would be "write once in 2008 and print money for eternity".

csallen 8y ago
It's easier developing for the web, where your code is less likely to break or require drastic changes over time. But yes, almost all businesses need at least some ongoing maintenance.
- Aloha 8y ago
  Try running a PHP app from 2008, today, and let me know how that works for you. There are decent odds it wont run well on modern versions - I can go down and look at every other web technology and point out the same thing - no computer program lives in stasis (except possible on z/OS)
  - rpeden 8y ago
    OTOH, an ASP.NET web app written in 2008 and not touched since then would probably still run happily now if you bumped its version up to .NET 4 or 4.5. C# has had Linq and lambdas since 2007 so there's a decent chance the code would be decently pleasant to work with, too. Some devs might find 2008 Web Forms apps a bit crufty in 2018 but if you squint and pretend your .aspx is inside a render method issued of a separate file, the mental model isn't all that different from a SPA.
    - cm2187 8y ago
      With .net core the writing is on the wall that the full .net framework will go the way of .net 1.1 (the .net team highlighted that it is too burdensome to maintain both frameworks in parallel). I am not sure that the new Microsoft has the same commitment to support legacy code than the Microsoft of the last 20 years.
      - oldmanhorton 8y ago
        They've made it clear that .NET Framework will be supported for many, many years. It just won't be getting as many new features. The point of the discussion here is about depreciating and removing and breaking existing tech, which will almost certainly not happen with .NET anything. Note that even VBScript still gets security updates. It's unimaginable that anything targeting .NET Framework will break (short of a bug) for at least a decade, and probably much longer.
  - cwyers 8y ago
    That's still just one runtime needing support at a time. OS upgrades happen in waves, and at a cadence you don't choose. Hosted server products, you choose when to update the server stack and you can stop supporting older versions.
- z3t4 8y ago
  for static semantic html its stable. but for dynamic web sites with JavaScript there can be breaking changes. it can get tricky when you do hacky stuff in order to support all platform and older browsers.
boudewijnrempt 8y ago
Of course not. If you're developing software, you want to spend the time on improving your offering, not porting to the latest, greatest fad. Every minute I, as a software developer, have to spend on porting my application to a new version of the platform is a minute I'm not improving my application. It's churn, it's waste, it's fire-and-motion: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/
ken 8y ago
Of every platform I've used, macOS makes this the toughest. I appreciate that I have to put in work to add features, fix bugs, and support new OS functionality. But Macintosh is the only one I use where a new OS release means a method call that worked fine with a default param value for the past 8 years causes an instant crash with the latest major OS (with no indication of any change in the documentation or release notes). I'm not even at the point where I can support the latest macOS functionality, because I'm still working around the previous round of deprecations. There are big sections I simply have to rewrite because the old way is going away, and the new way has a completely different structure. It's also the only system where I basically need to upgrade my (OS, IDE, compiler, language) tuple all at once -- which means this is all tied to the hardware, too. Never before have I had to do a firmware upgrade in order to use the latest syntax in a programming language. My graphics card won't be powerful enough to run the next version of the compiler, even though the software generally gets more efficient with every release. Zany. It really does seem strange when a new CPU architecture is the least significant change I've ever had to deal with as a developer.

flag_bcz_mad 8y ago

It boggles the mind that Apple with all its billions does not maintain the MAC App Store. It also baffles me that their products have so many bugs.