Re: [OT] Avoiding Unnecessary Updates -- WAS: Re: IS: Script Editor Styles Format Change Script -- WAS: Re: String to list conversion
Re: [OT] Avoiding Unnecessary Updates -- WAS: Re: IS: Script Editor Styles Format Change Script -- WAS: Re: String to list conversion
- Subject: Re: [OT] Avoiding Unnecessary Updates -- WAS: Re: IS: Script Editor Styles Format Change Script -- WAS: Re: String to list conversion
- From: "John C. Welch" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 00:52:38 -0500
On 9/15/04 12:27 AM, "Johnny AppleScript" <email@hidden> wrote:
> Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion based on your own
> experience, but around here and elsewhere people lost lots of time and data
> to botched MSO updater applications. A general note went out warning us to
> avoid the patches unless specific issues were being experienced that were
> named as fixed by the updaters. And then, possibly due to our custom
> installations outside the Applications folder, or large databases, or
> multiple users, or whatever, specific steps for backups in case of problems
> need to be taken, and it all is just a bit much when you're not getting paid
> enough to get done all the work you don't have time for in the first place.
>
> Again, it may seem nonsense to you, but I suspect you don't support hundreds
> of users, and hundreds of machines, either.
I have, and on clean systems, had zero problems with any of the updates
through 10.1.4
>
>> Get it now. (So did 10.1.0 and 10.1.1: if you don't
>> believe in updates, why aren't you in 10.0.0?)
>
> The first update addressed a specific problem I was having; the later
> updates address no problems I am aware of having. Simple, yes? If I ever see
> an update that addresses a problem I need fixed, I'll take the required
> steps to apply it. I don't consider a few pixels or points for a limited
> purpose I'll rarely use to be worth the effort just now.
So you only apply updates to anything when they fix a specific problem
you're having? Does that include the OS too?
>
>> The most important thing is that - as with all previous updaters - the
>> database and database rebuild engine are more robust in each update. It's
>> frankly - pardon me - stupid not to take advantage of that. You may be very
>> sorry one day.
>
> Possibly. But the DB is backed up to server every night, then optical media
> and tape at least weekly, and all email is stored on the server for at least
> 3, if not 30 days. If my DB rebuild ever fails, I can pull yesterday's copy
> off the server and resync with one download. I may be stupid, but I'm not
> foolish. I think the only thing I might end up being sorry for is starting
> this debate with someone so rabidly enamored of MS. ;-)
Why is it when anyone defends MS, they're accused of being apologists as if
no one rationally could actually LIKE a MS product?
>
>> Why do you call it a "tax"? You don't have to upgrade if you don't want to.
>> What kind of perverse philosophy says that 3 years of work at making anew
>> version with tons of new features shouldn't cost an upgrade price? Microsoft
>> is no different form any other software company - everyone charges upgrade
>> fees for major version upgrades. And so they should. In the meantime, you
>> can update to v10.1.4 for FREE.
>
> Ah, if only the FREE updaters would fix outstanding problems that most
> people would define as bugs, but you apologists describe as features worthy
> of another couple hundred bucks times hundreds of users at a site like this.
No, but if you think that any company is going to blow off a paid upgrade
with new features until all bugs are fixed, you're hallucinating. Apple
doesn't even do that.
>
> When MS starts fixing things in versions that could be purchased new within
> the last three to six months to a year or so before the latest and greatest
> feature bloat, such as fixing the show-stopping, app-crashing Junk Mail
> Filter bug, we'll stop calling it a tax. When someone is sold on a product
> based on extensive touting of a particular feature, and that feature is
> broken, to the point of being effectively unusable, and not fixed until the
> next paid upgrade, that's called a tax. It's unfair, and it doesn't fly
> around here.
Okay, so in other words any time that you charge for any update that has any
bug fixes in it, it's a tax. You don't seem to mind the Apple tax, or any
other company's tax, because EVERY COMPUTER COMPANY ON THE PLANET DOES THIS.
It's called *revenue generation* and without it, you go out of business.
>
> Such broken tools that force you to change the way you use the application
> (we have to turn JMF off when we go home or hundreds of other automations
> will fail if the app isn't able to even run) are not to be confused with
> recognizably new features that improve ways of doing things; things, if they
> appear to offer value to us, we are happy to pay for. But to force us to pay
> money to fix a problem that you created in the first version, and have a
> reasonable responsibility to take care of within a certain time period (we
> purchased a number of copies of Office X in December 2003 and January 2004,
> most of which did not qualify for any consideration for free upgrades, yet
> all were purchased after the JMF bug was identified), all because your fix
> just happens to include 150 new features we have no use or need for, that,
> again, is a tax.
How did you buy them? I bought copies of Office X a month before 2004 came
out, but because I didn't buy them retail, no free upgrade. Such is life.
Again, no company in the computer market does what you demand MS does, not
Apple, not IBM, not anyone.
>
> And don't blame the JMF bug on the spammers; they're not the only source of
> such deadly emails we've received; and no mail app should fatally crash with
> no clue as to source or how to fix it just because of a malformed header.
No, really? Could you get Mail/Mozilla/Eudora to not crash when a crappily
built email comes in, because I've watched every email client on the planet
practically crash if probed the right way.
> Could they have predicted it? Probably not, but they have been aware of it
> for long enough that they should have fixed it before or around the time the
> new version came out. Their apparent unwillingness to do so is the straw
> that broke the camel's back here. We're not even a blip on their financial
> radar, but I know we're not the only ones who are currently restricting
> purchases because of it; I wonder how many dollars they lost in new sales
> versus the cost to issue a fix for it. Probably not enough to change their
> minds, but the issue is still the same; sometimes the right business
> decision is one that costs you more than it earns you in the short term, but
> in the long term pays off in spades.
Well, if you want certain fixes, you buy the new version. That's how it
works with all commercial software. Your like or dislike is immaterial,
since reality doesn't care if we *like* it.
>
>> OK. The future is NOW, mind you.
>
> It may very well be; it just may not be with MS. At least with Mail and iCal
> and Address Book, the bug-fix tax is limited to one vendor, a vendor we have
> to go with anyway. And I see Apple delivering far more "free" updates and
> paid feature upgrades than MS is, and on a much larger scale.
That's because MS has to wait on Apple for certain bug fixes, like the HFS+
bug fix that came out in 10.2 so that large files wouldn't get randomly
truncated. There's a number of bugs that are Apple's fault. How, pray tell
should MS fix those? And you can run Linux on your Mac hardware, so you
don't "have" to go with them either.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I love MS Entourage; I like Word, for what it is, but
> can do OK for my purposes with any number of other apps; I love Excel, but
> doubt I'll see a new version that offers some feature I just *have* to have;
> I use PP occasionally, but it's really only because I already paid the tax.
> I'll probably use Entourage until I see just enough in the Apple offerings
> to make changing reasonably painless. Even then I will probably miss it. But
> if MS were ever to Do The Right Thing, and at least fix the JMF bug for X, I
> might reconsider paying for the next upgrade and keep the love affair going
> on my own, in spite of what management thinks about it.
They didn't just do a 'bug fix' with the JMF, they rewrote the thing
entirely, because that was the best way to get it to work right with the way
SPAM is being done, and allow them to update it. So, your assumption that
the JMF improvements in 2004 are just "bug fixes" that MS is somehow trying
to steal money from you for is incorrect.
I love how, in all these arguments, "Do The Right Thing" ALWAYS, not mostly
but ALWAYS translates to "Give me what I want for free in perpetuity".
If you want that, I recommend Yellow Dog Linux as a download, and Evolution.
john
--
We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem.
- Chesty Puller, USMC
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