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This is all looking at it from the wrong direction. Software only needs to be good enough to do its job. In the OP they're complaining about a recent iTunes rel

This is all looking at it from the wrong direction. Software only needs to be good enough to do its job. In the OP they're complaining about a recent iTunes release ... so what if its buggy? Apple are still raking in the cash every minute of the day. There is more software being produced now, all the time, then there ever has been before. It just has to be good enough. There are javascript errors on the page? But does it mostly work? Then just forget about it. The whole thing will get rewritten anyway next year and then there will be new bugs to ignore. That JIRA backlog will never go away. This may sound pessimistic but I'm just being pragmatic. Software has bugs, and now all around us there is a crap-ton of software all the time. It just has to be good enough. Or even 'barely good enough' will do in a lot of cases. This is how the world works because producing perfect software is ridiculously expensive.

Joker_vD 3y ago
...Let's just take the iTunes examples again: the previous version already existed and was good enough to do its job. Why spend the effort on a new, worse version? The Apple would still be raking in the cash, even more of it since they wouldn't have spend some of it on this pointless endeavour. By your dint of logic, we could have just stopped programming tomorrow altogether and most of the things would be just fine, and we could spend all this huge amount of human effort on something else (something presumably more important). That'd be quite pragmatic, wouldn't it? So why do we not?
- tempaway38641 3y ago
  Never ending competitive upgrade treadmill, aka innovation. Even if you dont want to release an upgrade, the layer below that you rely on still will, and then you'll have to keep up.
  - naasking 3y ago
    It seems like a mistake to conflate an upgrade treadmill with innovation.
    - tempaway38641 3y ago
      People innovating in the lower layers (e.g. Apple decides to move to ARM) creates an update treadmill for everyone in the upper layers
      - naasking 3y ago
        That doesn't make sense. If I'm on x64 Mac OS, why should Apple switching to ARM on their newer computers that other people are buying necessitate an update treadmill for me? Or anyone for that matter, even the people buying the new computers? Apple could just port the existing software over.
epups 3y ago
I find it baffling that this is so hard to understand. TFA talks as if there is a secret conspiracy to produce bad software, or as if everyone else is an intellectual midget that cannot produce any work competently.

Joker_vD 3y ago

...Let's just take the iTunes examples again: the previous version already existed and was good enough to do its job. Why spend the effort on a new, worse version? The Apple would still be raking in the cash, even more of it since they wouldn't have spend some of it on this pointless endeavour. By your dint of logic, we could have just stopped programming tomorrow altogether and most of the things would be just fine, and we could spend all this huge amount of human effort on something else (something presumably more important). That'd be quite pragmatic, wouldn't it? So why do we not?

tempaway38641 3y ago
Never ending competitive upgrade treadmill, aka innovation. Even if you dont want to release an upgrade, the layer below that you rely on still will, and then you'll have to keep up.
- naasking 3y ago
  It seems like a mistake to conflate an upgrade treadmill with innovation.
  - tempaway38641 3y ago
    People innovating in the lower layers (e.g. Apple decides to move to ARM) creates an update treadmill for everyone in the upper layers
    - naasking 3y ago
      That doesn't make sense. If I'm on x64 Mac OS, why should Apple switching to ARM on their newer computers that other people are buying necessitate an update treadmill for me? Or anyone for that matter, even the people buying the new computers? Apple could just port the existing software over.

epups 3y ago

I find it baffling that this is so hard to understand. TFA talks as if there is a secret conspiracy to produce bad software, or as if everyone else is an intellectual midget that cannot produce any work competently.