Why We Can't Have Nice Software

Discovered: Feb 7, 2024 07:15 Why We Can’t Have Nice Software - Andrew Kelley <– What is bitrot part 88888 :-) ?!? Read the whole thing –> QUOTE: Let's think critically about bitrot for a moment because, as a reminder, bits don't actually rot - that's kinda the point of bits. In the best case scenario, bitrot happens due to progress - perhaps a dependency has made improvements but requires breaking API compatibility, or better hardware comes out and the software needs to be recompiled for that hardware. In this case, it's kind of a happy outcome. Some labor is needed to enhance the software in response, but then, once again, it's done; ripples disappearing from the surface of a lake hours after a stone is thrown into it. ... The darker side of bitrot is due to businesses trying to make more profit than last year, and launching marketing initiatives. For example, Microsoft shipped a Windows Update that puts advertisements into the start menu, advertisements into the task bar, and changed the control panel's user interface to unify it with their business incentives - namely a superficial makeover to justify customers paying additional money for what is effectively worse software - it has new bugs and is now ridden with advertisements. This caused a bunch of churn in their own codebase, as well as other software trying to use native user interfaces on Windows. ... It's all so incredibly wasteful. And that's the point, isn't it? ... The programmers at Microsoft could have done less work, or worked on bug fixes instead