3 ms·

In some domains stability and correctness is a feature. You can't omit stability in life-critical software for example. On the other hand software's usefulnes

• cycloptic 6y ago
  Hey, if you have the kind of money that medical companies spend on testing and stability, and you want to spend that on Linux desktop environments, I won't complain. Although it probably is better to spend that on developing life saving devices than it is on fixing outdated desktop paradigms.
  • ddingus 6y ago
    Sidebar: desktop paradigms are hardly outdated. There are competing paradigms now, and that is good, but they have not yet actually reached use value and productivity levels where it is appropriate to say the desktop paradigm is out of date. At the worst, both will become more generally flexible to keep their value to the users.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• ddingus 6y ago
  Serious question: when are there not alternatives? The point being made here is not that it always must be stable. It is all about how often stability is not a priority when it could and or should be. And in the no alternative scenario, it can be compelling to continue to ignore robustness to get growth and lock in. When that happens, stability, robustness often stay in the back seat for a large fraction of the product life cycle. For any given user, the impact may be just low enough to keep them on board too. New features, and asking more money for them, or offering them to make up for that impact can be an ugly cycle leading to users ripe for the picking later on.
  • valand 6y ago
    > when are there not alternatives? Example: Steam cloud save. Countless time I have to force quit Steam's background service because Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V freeze while saving. Steam doesn't show the launch game button, even though the game is killed from task manager. There are no heartbeat like mechanism to keep in check the game process state. And there are no alternative to launch the game that I bought from steam, so the instability becomes little of nuisance. But that's a minor issue where unstable features are unimportant ones. > It is all about how often stability is not a priority when it could and or should be. And I'm on your team too. That's why my argument is that stability IS A feature too. Countering grant parent's argument that says stability is ignorable as long as the features are validated by the market. > And in the no alternative scenario, it can be compelling to continue to ignore robustness to get growth and lock in. As a paranoid user I agree this has been a nightmare. I constantly have to make sure I wont get locked in to services that I pay for, and often time I find myself using open source solutions rather than paid one because of the same reason.
    • ddingus 6y ago
      I agree, and was very unclear and incomplete with my question. One alternative is to simply not use the tool. Can be rough though. Your pain is acute! It absolutely is a feature. Guess the externalities problem crops up in this context. How to actualize those costs better so the equation makes more sense? And yes! I hate lock in viscerally. Frankly, will avoid it at very considerable cost.
      • valand 6y ago
        > How to actualize those costs better so the equation makes more sense? Which equation exactly? The balance between effort to stability and other stuffs? Sorry I'm a bit lost