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I wish this were true! But keeping your software current in 2022 is an continuous project. UIs improve, platforms shift, features expand, vulns appear, needs ch

I wish this were true! But keeping your software current in 2022 is an continuous project. UIs improve, platforms shift, features expand, vulns appear, needs change, server bills need to be paid.

cowtools 4y ago
I think this is a self-aggrandizing myth that is common in forums like HN with lots of programmers and designers: - UI's usually do not improve. They "improve" by making subjective changes for the benefit of the maker (often at the cost of the user). - Platforms are constantly shifting when they are owned by corporations. At first, businesses will penetrate the market by creating a competitive platform. Once their platform has reached critical market share, they will switch to milking their users who are now trapped due to vendor lock-in. This forces users of proprietary software to constantly jump ship in order to get a good deal. - Features sometimes expand, but most apps will reach a point where it no longer makes sense to add additional features. In the free-software world, we generally try to make an ecosystem of programs that work together: if a single program is too complex, its features may be divided into several smaller programs. In the corporate world, a single program may be bloated and expanded long past the point at which additional complexity will serve the user- so long as developers can continue to invent new ways to extract money, data, etc from their users. - New vulnerabilities may be uncovered, but generally vulnerabilities are only added when the complexity of program increases. Vulnerabilities don't just appear out of nowhere. If you write a program, it doesn't just become more vulnerable over time just by merit of being old. - Server bills usually need to be paid because people have inserted themselves as middlemen. If the internet was designed in a way that did not require paying a racketeering fee for DNS, PKI, etc. then we would see a lot of decentralized alternatives to "essential" services. It's hard for me to entirely put into words how flawed your statement is. If you have time, you may want to check out a book called "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory" by David Graeber (https://libgen.gs/edition.php?id=5852679 https://libgen.gs/edition.php?id=5852679). It might give you a new perspective on the software industry.
- johnfn 4y ago
  Man, I couldn't disagree more strongly! Programming is like building a house on shifting sand. How many projects that you haven't touched in the last 5 years still run? If you're anything like me, the percentage is vanishingly small - and my old projects aren't even that complicated. If you find that this is a belief "common in forums like HN with lots of programmers", I suspect that's because engineers are the most likely to have the hard-earned experience! I mean, just look at HN for examples. Quite literally yesterday it happened again: Heroku decided to turn off all old free apps. That's a whole bunch of my old apps that are about to deprecate and break unless I do some work on them. > Features sometimes expand, but most apps will reach a point where it no longer makes sense to add additional features. I think this is overly idealistic, or perhaps limited to too small of a problem space. If your software stops adding features, it will quickly be out-competed by software which does have new features that improve productivity. I suppose you could argue that some apps are "finished", but I tend to see those as a rather small subset of all apps - things like single-use command-line utilities, say, like grep and awk. It's hard for me to fathom Photoshop ever being finished - until you're beaming ideas directly from brain to canvas, there's always the possibility that new features can save more time[1]. > Vulnerabilities don't just appear out of nowhere But this is exactly what vulnerabilities do. One day, there isn't Heartbleed. The next day there is. One day, your Java dependencies are fine. The next day, log4j is broken for everyone on the internet. If you're not on call to solve problems like these, no one is going to use your app. I don't really understand how you can say "[a program] doesn't just become more vulnerable over time just by merit of being old". This is exactly what happens to any program with dependencies. > Server bills usually need to be paid because people have inserted themselves as middlemen People have inserted themselves as middlemen because servers require upkeep, and upkeeping a server takes the time of an experienced professional. They need to be patched for vulns (again), maybe you need to swap out your SSD because it finally ran out of writes, or any in a litany of other problems. [1]: Then again, with DALL-E, maybe this is happening sooner than we think - but that's beside the point.
  - archagon 4y ago
    I question the utility of most features Adobe adds to PS these days; but in any case, the problem is easily solved by building a robust plugin system and distributing the work.
whateveracct 4y ago
People still use programs like grafx2 and klystrack. They don't need big updates - they are what they are and do what they do nicely.

I wish this were true! But keeping your software current in 2022 is an continuous project. UIs improve, platforms shift, features expand, vulns appear, needs change, server bills need to be paid.

cowtools 4y ago

I think this is a self-aggrandizing myth that is common in forums like HN with lots of programmers and designers: - UI's usually do not improve. They "improve" by making subjective changes for the benefit of the maker (often at the cost of the user). - Platforms are constantly shifting when they are owned by corporations. At first, businesses will penetrate the market by creating a competitive platform. Once their platform has reached critical market share, they will switch to milking their users who are now trapped due to vendor lock-in. This forces users of proprietary software to constantly jump ship in order to get a good deal. - Features sometimes expand, but most apps will reach a point where it no longer makes sense to add additional features. In the free-software world, we generally try to make an ecosystem of programs that work together: if a single program is too complex, its features may be divided into several smaller programs. In the corporate world, a single program may be bloated and expanded long past the point at which additional complexity will serve the user- so long as developers can continue to invent new ways to extract money, data, etc from their users. - New vulnerabilities may be uncovered, but generally vulnerabilities are only added when the complexity of program increases. Vulnerabilities don't just appear out of nowhere. If you write a program, it doesn't just become more vulnerable over time just by merit of being old. - Server bills usually need to be paid because people have inserted themselves as middlemen. If the internet was designed in a way that did not require paying a racketeering fee for DNS, PKI, etc. then we would see a lot of decentralized alternatives to "essential" services. It's hard for me to entirely put into words how flawed your statement is. If you have time, you may want to check out a book called "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory" by David Graeber (https://libgen.gs/edition.php?id=5852679 https://libgen.gs/edition.php?id=5852679). It might give you a new perspective on the software industry.

johnfn 4y ago
Man, I couldn't disagree more strongly! Programming is like building a house on shifting sand. How many projects that you haven't touched in the last 5 years still run? If you're anything like me, the percentage is vanishingly small - and my old projects aren't even that complicated. If you find that this is a belief "common in forums like HN with lots of programmers", I suspect that's because engineers are the most likely to have the hard-earned experience! I mean, just look at HN for examples. Quite literally yesterday it happened again: Heroku decided to turn off all old free apps. That's a whole bunch of my old apps that are about to deprecate and break unless I do some work on them. > Features sometimes expand, but most apps will reach a point where it no longer makes sense to add additional features. I think this is overly idealistic, or perhaps limited to too small of a problem space. If your software stops adding features, it will quickly be out-competed by software which does have new features that improve productivity. I suppose you could argue that some apps are "finished", but I tend to see those as a rather small subset of all apps - things like single-use command-line utilities, say, like grep and awk. It's hard for me to fathom Photoshop ever being finished - until you're beaming ideas directly from brain to canvas, there's always the possibility that new features can save more time[1]. > Vulnerabilities don't just appear out of nowhere But this is exactly what vulnerabilities do. One day, there isn't Heartbleed. The next day there is. One day, your Java dependencies are fine. The next day, log4j is broken for everyone on the internet. If you're not on call to solve problems like these, no one is going to use your app. I don't really understand how you can say "[a program] doesn't just become more vulnerable over time just by merit of being old". This is exactly what happens to any program with dependencies. > Server bills usually need to be paid because people have inserted themselves as middlemen People have inserted themselves as middlemen because servers require upkeep, and upkeeping a server takes the time of an experienced professional. They need to be patched for vulns (again), maybe you need to swap out your SSD because it finally ran out of writes, or any in a litany of other problems. [1]: Then again, with DALL-E, maybe this is happening sooner than we think - but that's beside the point.
- archagon 4y ago
  I question the utility of most features Adobe adds to PS these days; but in any case, the problem is easily solved by building a robust plugin system and distributing the work.

whateveracct 4y ago

People still use programs like grafx2 and klystrack. They don't need big updates - they are what they are and do what they do nicely.