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Elda King

Is your software complete? Stop adding features - only bugfixes, and don't break compatibility. It should keep working forever.

Is it still incomplete? Then you must have a plan to make it feature-complete in the near future. Reduce the scope if necessary - make a sequel later! But get a finished, stable version out first.

Either you are responsible for maintaining every version you release, or you are responsible for perfect backwards compatibility.

7 comments
Elda King

I'm sick of updating software to meet the demands of other software updates.

I'm sick of constantly changing software to keep compatibility with other ever changing software.

I'm sick of updating _hardware_ to keep compatibility with the same software that used to work.

Adrian Cochrane

@eldaking I'm nearing basically-done on "Rhapsode"! At which point I'll focus on packaging it for others to use, & keeping dependencies updated. Which may enable new features, but there's not much more that can be added once I add webforms... I've saturated my I/O capabilities...

And I'll be hard it work on "Haphaestus"!

Mackaj

@eldaking

One of the reasons I use a Chromebook at home. I deal with all that stuff during work hours so when it's my personal time I want something that just works and I don't have to think about it. Software updates on a Chromebook are just a restart, that's it. 30 seconds tops, then get on with your life.

G (space monkey)

@eldaking I always imagined if I ran a software company I would build singular/modular pieces that all worked together so people could just choose what features they want and what they don’t.

But I’m not a dev so I don’t know if that’s really feasible.

Elda King

@g I mean, that is just selling many different programs, one for each thing. Or toolkits/extensions/addons to the base program, which are very common for commercial software.

Elias Mårtenson

@g @eldaking it is technically feasibile. But it's difficult. If the framework on which you build the modules is not perfect, you'll have problems in the future, and since software is never perfect, you will have problems. Those problems are what causes the need to do major updates later.

wiccheheim queanroller

@eldaking b-b-but agile!

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