6 ms·

About compatibility. Windows is a shitshow beacuse the leadership is chaotic, dragged all around all the time, never finishing nothing well. They only survived

About compatibility. Windows is a shitshow beacuse the leadership is chaotic, dragged all around all the time, never finishing nothing well. They only survived because of backward compatibility! Building on the unlikely success in the 90s. Also, why do I have to install new software in every couple of months to access my bank account, secure chat, flight booking system, etc., etc., without any noticable difference in operation and functionality. A lot of things unreasonably becoming incompatible with 'old' (we are talking about months for f's sake!!) versions. That's a nuisance and erosion of trust.

scarface_74 2y ago
Apples leadership hasn’t always been a light on a shining hill, especially during the 90s and they still managed the 68K to PPC transition.
chikere232 2y ago
> Also, why do I have to install new software in every couple of months to access my bank account, secure chat, flight booking system, etc., etc., without any noticable difference in operation and functionality. A lot of things unreasonably becoming incompatible with 'old' (we are talking about months for f's sake!!) versions. That's a nuisance and erosion of trust. Are you talking about security updates?
- scarface_74 2y ago
  And my other question, is why are constant updates a concern? It’s not like you have to get a stack of floppies and upgrade your software or even do anything manually. Everything auto updates. At least with iOS, iOS 18 supports devices introduced since 2018 and iOS 16 just got a security update late last year and that supports phones back to 2017.
  - eviks 2y ago
    The obvious answer is because update can break your workflow or waste your time in other ways
    - sadeshmukh 2y ago
      How?
      - econ 2y ago
        You should be able to write something and have it work for the next 1000 years. There is no reason why it can't. I imagine a simple architecture where each application has its own crappy CPU some memory and some storage with frozen specs. Imagine 1960 and your toaster gains control over your washing machine. Why are they even in the same box?
        scarface_74 2y ago
        And your needs and technogy doesn’t change in 1000 years? Does it really make sense in 2025 to use Quicken (?) with a dialup modem that calls into my bank once a day to update my balances like I did in 1996? Imagine 1960 and your toaster gains control over your washing machine. Why are they even in the same box? Imagine in 2002 your MP3 Player, your portable TV, your camera, your flashlight, your GPS receiver, your computer you use to browse the web, and your phone being the same device…
        caspper69 2y ago
        > Does it really make sense to use Quicken (?) with a dialup modem that called into my bank once a day to update my balances like I did in 1996 Well, the modern hot garbage Intuit forces people to use takes 5-15 seconds to save a transaction, 3-5 seconds to mark a transaction as cleared by the bank, it sometimes completely errors out with no useful message and no recourse other than "try again", has random UI glitches such as matched transactions not being removed from the list of transactions to match once matched (wtf?), and is an abject failure at actually matching those transactions without hitting "Find matches", because for whatever reason the software can't seem to figure out that the $2182.77 transaction from the bank matches the only $2182.77 transaction in the ledger. That one really gets my goat, because seriously, WTF guys? Not to mention the random failure of the interface to show correct totals at random inopportune moments. Oh, and it costs 5x as much on an annual basis. I sure would take that 1996 version with some updated aesthetics and a switch to web-based transaction downloading versus the godawful steaming pile of shit we have now- every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Hands down. This idea that we've made progress is absolutely laughable. Every single interaction is now slower to start, has built-in latency at every step of the process, and is fragile as hell to boot because the interface is running on the framework-du-jour in javascript. Baby Jesus weeps for the workflows forced upon people nowadays. I mean seriously, have none of you 20-somethings never used a true native (non-Electron) application before?
  - mihaaly 2y ago
    Because the f up existing feature we rely on! That's why! They use it to push garbage on you!
- derangedHorse 2y ago
  > without any noticable difference in operation and functionality Presumably a security update would mean a difference in operation somewhere. They were probably referring to the updates that just exist to add ads, promos, design changes, etc.
- mihaaly 2y ago
  I am talking about getting outdated and inoperable frequently, several software. I wouldn't blame it on security, as many of them do. ...or if it is true, this mass security issues emerging from their design, then the situation is even worse than just being lazy ignorant bastards.... or perhaps the mass security problems are related to this incompetence as well?... oi!
- superjan 2y ago
  Well, why was the initial release insecure in the first place?
  - chikere232 2y ago
    Because security is hard and there are people constantly working on finding new issues. It's a bit like asking why the army needs tanks when horses worked well the previous war
BirAdam 2y ago
I wouldn’t call Microsoft’s success in the 90s unlikely. They had a decent product at a low price for commodity hardware when nothing else was as good for as cheap. They also had decent marketing. The company worked hard and delivered. That’s not unlikely, it’s good execution. The unlikely part was something more like OSX taking Microsoft developer market monopoly away.
- AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
  You needed Visual Studio and C++ to automate even the most mundane things in Windows. Without decent scripting or command line Windows was a developer's nightmare compared to Linux. Anything providing something like Linux with a polished surface and support for the tools of the rest of office IT (e.g. MS Word) was going to blow Windows away in this area. So the success of OSX here is no surprise.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    I was using Perl and the Win32 module to automate over a dozen job servers. But the native way of doing it was VbScript with the Windows Script Host.
  - BirAdam 2y ago
    Linux wasn't really "ready" in the mid-90s. OS X was the product of NeXT and Jobs returning to Apple, and those two weren't the only option. There was also Be and Gassee. Apple had to have compatibility layers for that transition, and the amount of work involved was far higher, making success less likely. At this point, MS had been among the largest purveyors of developer tooling in the PC space, MS-DOS and Windows 3 were pervasive enough to have emulators on workstations, and Apple was nearly dead. When it came to microcomputers that were not workstations (so almost all by percentage), MS was king. They were pushing, for the time, a decent product at a decent price. Apple coming out of nowhere with a solid product just wasn't likely. It would have been far more likely for the company to die. They did well, executed well, marketed well, but it wasn't likely. It was very risky. Facing down Microsoft at that time was Herculean.
ripped_britches 2y ago
The app updates you mention are most likely due to the problem of not being able to hot update client side code easily / at all in the google/apple ecosystems. Web actually excels here because you can use service workers to manage versioning and caching so that backwards compatibility is never a concern.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Isn’t updating client side code, pushing an update to the store and the device automatically updating the app?
  - ripped_britches 2y ago
    Yes but those updates aren’t guaranteed like they are on web, so you have to ensure backwards compatibility at all times or do painful forced upgrade modals. Uber still has plenty of drivers in Europe using super super years old versions of the app (I think to circumvent new limits or something) and they still have to keep it working for them
amrocha 2y ago
I’m not sure where you live, but I’ve never had to install anything to access the features you described, going back over a decade. All of that has been solved by the web at this point.

scarface_74 2y ago

Apples leadership hasn’t always been a light on a shining hill, especially during the 90s and they still managed the 68K to PPC transition.

chikere232 2y ago

> Also, why do I have to install new software in every couple of months to access my bank account, secure chat, flight booking system, etc., etc., without any noticable difference in operation and functionality. A lot of things unreasonably becoming incompatible with 'old' (we are talking about months for f's sake!!) versions. That's a nuisance and erosion of trust. Are you talking about security updates?

scarface_74 2y ago
And my other question, is why are constant updates a concern? It’s not like you have to get a stack of floppies and upgrade your software or even do anything manually. Everything auto updates. At least with iOS, iOS 18 supports devices introduced since 2018 and iOS 16 just got a security update late last year and that supports phones back to 2017.
- eviks 2y ago
  The obvious answer is because update can break your workflow or waste your time in other ways
  - sadeshmukh 2y ago
    How?
    - econ 2y ago
      You should be able to write something and have it work for the next 1000 years. There is no reason why it can't. I imagine a simple architecture where each application has its own crappy CPU some memory and some storage with frozen specs. Imagine 1960 and your toaster gains control over your washing machine. Why are they even in the same box?
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        And your needs and technogy doesn’t change in 1000 years? Does it really make sense in 2025 to use Quicken (?) with a dialup modem that calls into my bank once a day to update my balances like I did in 1996? Imagine 1960 and your toaster gains control over your washing machine. Why are they even in the same box? Imagine in 2002 your MP3 Player, your portable TV, your camera, your flashlight, your GPS receiver, your computer you use to browse the web, and your phone being the same device…
        caspper69 2y ago
        > Does it really make sense to use Quicken (?) with a dialup modem that called into my bank once a day to update my balances like I did in 1996 Well, the modern hot garbage Intuit forces people to use takes 5-15 seconds to save a transaction, 3-5 seconds to mark a transaction as cleared by the bank, it sometimes completely errors out with no useful message and no recourse other than "try again", has random UI glitches such as matched transactions not being removed from the list of transactions to match once matched (wtf?), and is an abject failure at actually matching those transactions without hitting "Find matches", because for whatever reason the software can't seem to figure out that the $2182.77 transaction from the bank matches the only $2182.77 transaction in the ledger. That one really gets my goat, because seriously, WTF guys? Not to mention the random failure of the interface to show correct totals at random inopportune moments. Oh, and it costs 5x as much on an annual basis. I sure would take that 1996 version with some updated aesthetics and a switch to web-based transaction downloading versus the godawful steaming pile of shit we have now- every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Hands down. This idea that we've made progress is absolutely laughable. Every single interaction is now slower to start, has built-in latency at every step of the process, and is fragile as hell to boot because the interface is running on the framework-du-jour in javascript. Baby Jesus weeps for the workflows forced upon people nowadays. I mean seriously, have none of you 20-somethings never used a true native (non-Electron) application before?
- mihaaly 2y ago
  Because the f up existing feature we rely on! That's why! They use it to push garbage on you!
derangedHorse 2y ago
> without any noticable difference in operation and functionality Presumably a security update would mean a difference in operation somewhere. They were probably referring to the updates that just exist to add ads, promos, design changes, etc.
mihaaly 2y ago
I am talking about getting outdated and inoperable frequently, several software. I wouldn't blame it on security, as many of them do. ...or if it is true, this mass security issues emerging from their design, then the situation is even worse than just being lazy ignorant bastards.... or perhaps the mass security problems are related to this incompetence as well?... oi!
superjan 2y ago
Well, why was the initial release insecure in the first place?
- chikere232 2y ago
  Because security is hard and there are people constantly working on finding new issues. It's a bit like asking why the army needs tanks when horses worked well the previous war

BirAdam 2y ago

I wouldn’t call Microsoft’s success in the 90s unlikely. They had a decent product at a low price for commodity hardware when nothing else was as good for as cheap. They also had decent marketing. The company worked hard and delivered. That’s not unlikely, it’s good execution. The unlikely part was something more like OSX taking Microsoft developer market monopoly away.

AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
You needed Visual Studio and C++ to automate even the most mundane things in Windows. Without decent scripting or command line Windows was a developer's nightmare compared to Linux. Anything providing something like Linux with a polished surface and support for the tools of the rest of office IT (e.g. MS Word) was going to blow Windows away in this area. So the success of OSX here is no surprise.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  I was using Perl and the Win32 module to automate over a dozen job servers. But the native way of doing it was VbScript with the Windows Script Host.
- BirAdam 2y ago
  Linux wasn't really "ready" in the mid-90s. OS X was the product of NeXT and Jobs returning to Apple, and those two weren't the only option. There was also Be and Gassee. Apple had to have compatibility layers for that transition, and the amount of work involved was far higher, making success less likely. At this point, MS had been among the largest purveyors of developer tooling in the PC space, MS-DOS and Windows 3 were pervasive enough to have emulators on workstations, and Apple was nearly dead. When it came to microcomputers that were not workstations (so almost all by percentage), MS was king. They were pushing, for the time, a decent product at a decent price. Apple coming out of nowhere with a solid product just wasn't likely. It would have been far more likely for the company to die. They did well, executed well, marketed well, but it wasn't likely. It was very risky. Facing down Microsoft at that time was Herculean.

ripped_britches 2y ago

The app updates you mention are most likely due to the problem of not being able to hot update client side code easily / at all in the google/apple ecosystems. Web actually excels here because you can use service workers to manage versioning and caching so that backwards compatibility is never a concern.

scarface_74 2y ago
Isn’t updating client side code, pushing an update to the store and the device automatically updating the app?
- ripped_britches 2y ago
  Yes but those updates aren’t guaranteed like they are on web, so you have to ensure backwards compatibility at all times or do painful forced upgrade modals. Uber still has plenty of drivers in Europe using super super years old versions of the app (I think to circumvent new limits or something) and they still have to keep it working for them

amrocha 2y ago

I’m not sure where you live, but I’ve never had to install anything to access the features you described, going back over a decade. All of that has been solved by the web at this point.