Re: Food for thought (resurfacing)

I agree with Larry. There are a very large number of reasons why 
auto-update involves tradeoffs as opposed to being in all cases a win. How 
many of us have had an auto-update disable a system or introduce a 
disruptive incompatibility just before a key presentation or during the 
high pressure push for a product deliverable?

Noah

On 7/28/2014 8:21 PM, Larry Masinter wrote:
>> We're not to a fully auto-updating world yet, but are closer than ever before and the trend lines are good.
>
> I think the issue (about dynamically loading engines) isn't the number of players (one, three, or fifty) but the variety.
>
> Reality check please:
> Is that actually the real world, are the trend lines really that way? Or is it only if you are only looking at the auto-updating subset?
> And if it's true the whole world is really trending toward auto-update everything, is it unreservedly "good"?
>
> Software updates tend to target (and is tested against) recent hardware and platforms.
> Software updates are disruptive. Updates fix old bugs but can introduce new ones.
> Software updates can be impractical in small-memory embedded systems or those with special configurations and requirements.
>
> A fully auto-updating world, or one in which engines are dynamically loaded, is good for fully auto-updating / dynamically loading browser vendors (whether one or many), but not so good for end users of other applications.
>
> Larry
> --
> http://larry.masinter.net
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 29 July 2014 02:03:29 UTC