If I say I've got two versions of Word - that old one from 1982 that's perfect, with zero defects; or the new one that's got all this cool new stuff, but there might be a few bugs in it - people always want the new one. But I wouldn't want them to operate a plane I was on with software that happened to be the latest greatest release!
I have the Internet, but the first that happens with it is my machine will crash. I get by when it's operating. What would I know about updating?
The problem is, we're moving to software-as-service, which can be yanked or transformed at any moment. The ability of your PC to run independent code is an important safety valve.
At a certain point, the services that you build around the hardware become more important than the hardware itself.
My reply is: the software has no known bugs, therefore it has not been updated.
As things go digital, the notion of new editions will go away. A publisher can add video and assessment content at scale, make the change in 30 seconds and it's just a software update.
I use Windows; '98 second edition and it works very good for me. You know, I just started on the computer about 9 months ago and am fascinated with the possibilities. I don't know what I would do without it now.
The challenge with Postfix, or with any piece of software, is to update software without introducing problems.
No consumer product improves more drastically, year after year, than the computer.
The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial chance of introducing another.
Most of the effort in the software business goes into the maintenance of code that already exists.
Software as an asset isn't stable over time; it needs to be maintained.
A wide variety of devices beyond personal computers are arriving, many of which will be used to browse the Web... The Flash engineering team has taken this on with a major overhaul of the mainstream Flash Player for a variety of devices.
With bundled machines you can throw away the hardware and keep the software, and it's still a good buy.
Well, the first thing to say is that we've worked hard to maintain compatibility, so that any program written with an earlier version of Mathematica can run without change in 3.0, and any notebook can be converted.
I don't think I've ever sent a text to Gordon Brown because I'm confident that he would absolutely have no idea how to receive it. He barely managed to master WordPerfect 4.1.
