[Guzba]

Whether or not software can be finished with 0 bugs is sort of irrelevant. Windows and other software users use most will basically never be "finished".

The updates that are causing the fever are not just "bugfixes", they are the current state of living software--always expanding and improving (at least in intent). The fact users see software that hasn't been updated as dead is a reflection of their learned expectations. And they are correct, it likely is dead in the "no longer improving as my other software is" sense.

The real issue I have is how shitty most update processes are. Thanks for rebooting my PC Win 10, yes Sublime Text, please tell me again in a dialog that there is an update, etc. Some apps have done much better here like Chrome and Discord, but it is not an easy thing to build.

[badsectoracula]

The question - and what the article is arguing is about - is if the "no longer improving as my other software is" part makes sense. Does software always have to change (not necessarily improve as software will become worse almost as often as it'll become better - especially when it comes to GUI programs that often tend to shuffle things around, invalidating the users' knowledge)?

[Guzba]

I think people tend to memorize how they use software so randomizing / frequently changing your UI is superbly bad, in that I agreeing with your point and that part of the article.

The trouble I still see is that most software is barely held together built on top of stuff that is even worse. From my experience, if it is running on Android or Windows, it is 100% guaranteed you will have an issue you didn't predict because some set of users have done something crazy to their device. I guess you could always leave these things broken for a while, but it would reflect poorly and is hard to convince others that "oh this crash is ok".

I guess tl;dr I think most software is broken and always broken and updating more or less frequently wouldn't really change the brokenness for users, but the frequent updates at least give them hope fixes are coming and their feedback matters. Knowing you'll have this bug forever makes any alternative attractive.