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"If the former, I probably don't want to use it." I guess that really depends on what it is. The older I get, the more change-averse I become. That doesn't me

"If the former, I probably don't want to use it." I guess that really depends on what it is. The older I get, the more change-averse I become. That doesn't mean that everything is perfect and we shouldn't fix things that are broken, but it does mean I start to embrace the philosophy of "don't fix what isn't broken" more and more. If I have something installed on my desktop / workstation that a) is not network attached and b) is not exploitable from a security point of view (least privileges, no sensitive data) c) has little risk of corrupting data and d) is unlikely to "just stop working" one day because of a systems / dependency update ... then I'm not in any hurry to update it. When I do get around to it it's probably because I'm installing a new version of Linux and so everything is getting an update. But if the old version still works, has no bugs or security risks and there's been no updates for years ... who cares? I can think of several categories of applications that fall into this category: - Music / mp3 player - Classic Shell / Open Shell for Windows - Office software, like LibreOffice. I'm sure newer versions offer some niceties but things "just work" for me. I don't see the reason to upgrade. - Almost every game, ever (assuming it's stable and has no major usability bugs that need patching) - Lots more Things I do want to upgrade would be my web browser, operating system kernel, anything network attached. Really anything that could affect data integrity or security. Other than that, I'm lazy, comfortable and I don't want to risk the introduction of breaking changes.

andrepd 4y ago
> That doesn't mean that everything is perfect and we shouldn't fix things that are broken, Okay, so this is exactly what GP said. There is a difference between "not adding new features" and "not fixing bugs".
- gspencley 4y ago
  Not to get into a semantic argument about specific words and their meanings, but my broader point is that there are certain categories of bugs where I wouldn't care if they ever got fixed or not. Maybe this is nit-picking and maybe it's my cynical brain coming out of 25 years of software development where people can't even seem to agree on what constitutes a "bug" vs a "change request" half the time, or how we prioritize the severity of bugs etc. but my point is that sometimes "it's not broken" means "it's good enough." Would I be upset if the developer "fixed" these categories of bugs? Of course not. But would I avoid using the software at all if they never did? ... "I guess that really depends on what it [the software in question] is."

andrepd 4y ago

> That doesn't mean that everything is perfect and we shouldn't fix things that are broken, Okay, so this is exactly what GP said. There is a difference between "not adding new features" and "not fixing bugs".

gspencley 4y ago
Not to get into a semantic argument about specific words and their meanings, but my broader point is that there are certain categories of bugs where I wouldn't care if they ever got fixed or not. Maybe this is nit-picking and maybe it's my cynical brain coming out of 25 years of software development where people can't even seem to agree on what constitutes a "bug" vs a "change request" half the time, or how we prioritize the severity of bugs etc. but my point is that sometimes "it's not broken" means "it's good enough." Would I be upset if the developer "fixed" these categories of bugs? Of course not. But would I avoid using the software at all if they never did? ... "I guess that really depends on what it [the software in question] is."