How many updates is too often?

At 11:47 AM -0800 1/5/05, Eric Durbrow Ph.D. wrote:
>Do people feel that frequent updates can be more counterproductive
>than helpful?

Most of the software I use that updates frequently isn't changing any
major features or usability. So one version looks and works the same
as the other more or less. So I find most frequent updates helpful
if not wholly uneventful.

>Is there a limit to developer responsiveness that we have all
>praised in the past?

Nah. If a developer is releasing a new version daily, I would as
that developer only expect people to upgrade every week at the most.
As I see it if the bugs have been fixed or small new features added
why not let it out into the world for everyone to use?

Nick

I find VueScan's frequent updates, which seem to come several times a
week, annoying and nearly impossible to keep up with. I wish they would
at least add a feature to automatically check for updates, like many
other frequently updated products have, or try to limit their updates
to one or two a month.

I love VueScan, but the updates are far too frequent and don't really
seem useful for me.

On or about 1/5/05 11:47 AM, thus spake "Eric Durbrow Ph.D."
<eric.durbrowcomcast.net>:

> Updates for some shareware applications seem to be extremely frequently. For
> example Tao seems updated every 2-3 days and NewsFire seems to be updated
> weekly

But both of those are betas! If you go by official releases, Tao has only
had two releases (we are now at 1.02) and they were months apart (and the
second release was badly needed, because, as I pointed out at the time, the
first one omitted an important feature, namely keyboard navigation). And
NewsFire hasn't been released at all yet!

So I think this question is mis-posed; the real problem in these instances
is whether folks can distinguish signal from noise. If you don't want to be
a beta-tester, don't be one - listen only to signal, not to noise. But if
you enjoy testing and contacting the developer about problems and helping
with development, then an open beta system such as these two programs have
is perfectly appropriate. m.

--
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On Jan 5, 2005, at 12:47 PM, Eric Durbrow Ph.D. wrote:
> Do people feel that frequent updates can be more counterproductive
> than helpful? Is there a limit to developer responsiveness that we
> have all praised in the past?

I think the limit is when the updates aren't tested fully and do more
damage than good. Otherwise it's a matter of personal preference, on
both the developers and the users side.

A nice compromise is to have a 'development' and a 'current' branch for
new developments: the 'development' branch is updated often with the
latest version; the 'current' branch on the other hand consists of
selected snapshots from the 'development' branch which turned out to be
stable enough for continued use.

Cheers,
   Lars
--
Lars Duening; larsbearnip.com
GPG Key: http://www.bearnip.com/lars/lars-duening.gpgkey

I love applications that have frequent updates, X-plane and LaunchBar
are good examples. It suggests to me a developer that is actively
supporting and developing an application, listening to users and
innovating.

Richard Totaro

To me it boils down to "what does the update do", not to how often it's updated. There is no "too frequent" or "not frequent enough", there is only "has the features or reliability I want" and "doesn't have the features or reliability I want".

Having looked at the previous thread, I find the whole idea of "what's been updated recently" listings on various sites to be quite useless. I'd rather people spent more time making better search engines so that I could find useful software, or maybe giving me a random list of packages so that I can accidentally discover something new that I wouldn't have thought to look for.

Just my thoughts. Marc

>Updates for some shareware applications seem to be extremely frequently.

Yea, I've noticed that for some apps too, though Graphic Converter doesn't
happen as frequently as your 'Tao' it definitely happens much more regularly
than other apps I use. If a developer is going to churn through so many
versions then I think the effort should be made on the developer's part to
minimize the inconvenience of manually updating the application.

I don't see any good reason why the app can't download an updater/new version
of itself (with appropriate user authentication and approval) and archive the
old version until another version comes out. Having to surf through a few web
links, copy a file from a disk image, move it over its new 'home' etc. can
get a bit tedious for the frequently-updated apps.

FWIW YMMV

Dieder

Matt's right that Tao and Newsfire (both great applications) have beta versions. Yet in the case of Tao and perhaps Vuescan the betas seem to be posted much more frequently than other betas (e.g. Camino). My question has become whether frequent "beta" posting serves as free advertising. Tao is always fresh in the minds of those that visit Versiontracker or Macupdate. Again, its a fine program along with Newsfire and Vuescan but I am just curious about the relation between frequent updates and advertising/promotion/visibility.

I use all the apps so far used as examples (good & bad?) and I really
don't mind their higher frequency of updates. When I see that
something has been updated on Versiontracker or MacUpDate I just take
a look at what has been listed as changed. If nothing relevant or
interesting has been changed I simply ignore it. So for the interim
Tao lettered updates I ignore them (even when Tao reminds me). With
Vuescan I look to see if it effects my scanner. So I appreciate good
information either through the developer or the software sites. If I
have to go looking I'll just give up.

I guess you could look at these developers as either very responsive
and active or as sloppy and constantly fixing mistakes. I tend toward
the more positive opinion.

So I find it helpful but not annoying.
--
Cheers, John

John Mather
D. C. Smith Greenhouse
University of Wisconsin - Madison

Quoting "Eric Durbrow Ph.D." <eric.durbrowcomcast.net>:

> Matt's right that Tao and Newsfire (both great applications) have beta
> versions. Yet in the case of Tao and perhaps Vuescan the betas seem to
> be posted much more frequently than other betas (e.g. Camino). My
> question has become whether frequent "beta" posting serves as free
> advertising. Tao is always fresh in the minds of those that visit
> Versiontracker or Macupdate. Again, its a fine program along with
> Newsfire and Vuescan but I am just curious about the relation between
> frequent updates and advertising/promotion/visibility.

Camino has a stable build, and a nightly build. The nightly build is an
automatic build of the latest checked-in version of the software. So
technically Camino updates every day. The stable build less often.

Moneydance has a similar system (but not a nightly build) where there is a
stable version, and a preview (beta) version.

This is what I prefer. If I find a bug in the stable, I can try it in the
preview/beta/nightly build and see if it has been fixed.

Monthly stable build updates is probably sufficient for me. Weekly for beta
builds (assuming a full time developer, for shareware where it isn't their day
job then much less frequently is perfectly fine for me)

Kevin

On Jan 6, 2005, at 5:07 PM, Mike Cohen wrote:

> I find VueScan's frequent updates, which seem to come several times a
> week, annoying and nearly impossible to keep up with. I wish they would
> at least add a feature to automatically check for updates, like many
> other frequently updated products have, or try to limit their updates
> to one or two a month.
>
> I love VueScan, but the updates are far too frequent and don't really
> seem useful for me.
>

I use VueScan, and I too find that the frequency of their updates are
far above the norm for a shipping (non-beta) product. However, reading
the "what's new" associated with each release shows that most of the
updates have to do with adding, fixing or updating support for specific
scanners. With 400+ scanners supported, the likelihood that any update
will affect my scanner is very small. On the other hand, if a there is
a particular issue that does affect my scanner, I certainly do not want
to wait a month for them to roll it in to a larger update. So when my
weekly VersionTracker email tells me there's an update, I just quickly
glance at what is new and don't bother with the update if it does not
affect me. And given the nature of the program I can live with that.

As for the "check automatically for updates" feature, in most programs
that implement them I find them pretty much useless. The reason is
that they just tell you that there is a new version available, but not
what is actually new. I subscribe to the "don't fix it if it ain't
broke" school of thought, so I generally don't like to apply updates
"blind" without knowing what it is supposed to fix. So, I have to go
to VersionTracker or the developer's site any way. If listing all the
changes is impractical, then even just indicating the nature of the
update would be useful: "critical bug fix", "minor bug fix", "new
features", "new hardware support", etc. I might act on the first
immediately, and wait on the others until a more convenient time.

Tn

On 1/6/05 2:07 PM, "Matt Neuburg" wrote:
> But both of those are betas! If you go by official releases, Tao has only
> had two releases (we are now at 1.02) and they were months apart (and the
> second release was badly needed, because, as I pointed out at the time, the
> first one omitted an important feature, namely keyboard navigation).

Two official releases, yes. But 72 releases noted on VersionTracker in the
past year ;-)
 

> So I think this question is mis-posed; the real problem in these instances
> is whether folks can distinguish signal from noise. If you don't want to be
> a beta-tester, don't be one - listen only to signal, not to noise.

When you have a public beta, the noise is hard to ignore thanks to sites
like VersionTracker and MacUpdate. Unlike closed betas -- or, in the case of
Camino, "unannounced" nightly builds -- public beta versions show up on
these sites regularly. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this,
assuming the developer of a title is legitimately releasing improved
versions; it's just tough to ignore betas of apps like Tao when they're
showing up on the VersionTracker site and in the RSS feeds every few days
(and sometimes multiple times in the same day ;-) ). I think that's what the
original question was getting at.

On the other hand, I *do* have a problem with developers that appear to
release new versions frequently just to get bumps on the update sites.
For example, the various DVD cataloging apps seem to be in a constant battle
for "update bumps" over the past couple months -- whenever one is updated,
one or two others are miraculously "updated" within hours.