If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It
Posted by Johan Cyprich on 24 Sep 2007 | Tagged as: General
One of the biggest challenges facing software developers today is trying to convince users of an existing application to switch to their new, improved, feature filled product. They wind up dealing with people whose line of thinking is that if the software your using now meets your basic requirements, there is no need for an upgrade. It seems safer keeping things familiar, which can ultimately lead to disaster.
Y2K – We’re All Doomed
In the last few years of the 20th Century, there was a mass panic to fix Y2K problems. Many systems designed 20-30 years earlier (or more) stored the date as a 2-digit number. This works well until the year 2000 occurs which would revert to the year to 1900. The reason why 2-digits were used to represent the year is because at the time, computer hardware was expensive and using the short form for the year saved money. However, when the cost of hardware dropped, the existing systems that used the short year were not upgraded. Management kept passing the task to fix this problem to their predecessors, who in turn passed it forwards.
It wasn’t until it was the 11th hour when it was realized that there wasn’t enough time to correct the bugs, so additional programmers were contracted to quickly fix the broken code before the new millennium arrived. The cost would have been considerably less to repair if it was dealt with 10 years earlier.
2008 Models Are On Sale At 20% Off
Even today, many companies are not upgrading to modern software, such as Windows Vista. There is still a very large base of Windows 2000 and XP users. One of the shipping companies I used to deal with in Blaine, WA used a DOS-based tracking software for their business. When I asked them if they would be upgrading to something more modern, they didn’t understand the need to replace an application that was already working.
When Microsoft released Word, Excel, and Access, they were far superior to their counterparts: WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBASE III. It took years of marketing to switch users over to the Microsoft products. Users hesitated in switching to the better software because their existing ones were familiar and most people are allergic to learning new things.
There are a large number of web servers today that are still running PHP 4 and refuse to install PHP 5. Excuses, not valid reasons are made to justify this decision. The end result is that web applications with serious security flaws are being developed and deployed. PHP 4 is being officially discontinued next January, but I wonder how many developers will switch to version 5?
Support Your Local Software Developer
Why would you want to upgrade software that works or switch it to another application which promises more? Security is a major force driving users to make upgrades. Hackers exploit weaknesses in software and this is not just through bugs they find, new techniques for breaking security get discovered.
There are almost always better and more efficient ways of doing things and this functionality comes with new software. This will allow you to get the job done faster and compete better in your industry. A shipping company using a single-user DOS tracking software will be at a disadvantage to another company using a multi-user, database driven application that can coordinate information with other branches over the Internet.
Its important to keep an open mind with existing software. You need to ask yourself if the software really is meeting your needs. Are there additional features you need? Is there a better way to solve your problems than with what your doing now? Upgrading to a later version, or even switching to an application from another software may be the solution. New software may have to be learned, but if you don’t use it, your competitors will be and you’ll be left behind with antiquated products.
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2 Comments »
on 29 Sep 2007 at 11:37 pm 1.Ted said …
I subscribe to the policy of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” While it’s true that newer versions of software contain cool features and important fixes, sometimes they come at too great of a price. Take, for example, Windows Media Player. We’re up to, what, 11 right now? I’m still using 6.4! Why? The newer versions of Windows Media Player is filled with just too much unnecessary features that hinder performance and clutter up the user interface. The same holds true for a lot of software.
And there’s also a possibility that upgrading to a newer version could seriously mess up your computer. A week ago, I was feeling that my ZoneAlarm firewall was a little outdated – even though it still worked just fine, so I downloaded the latest version. I uninstalled the old one and installed the new one. It asked me to reboot. I did, and Windows never started up again, except in Safe Mode. I’m fairly competent with computers (I built and configured my own from scratch), but I just couldn’t fix what ZoneAlarm screwed up. I had to reinstall Windows.
That’s not to say I’m completely against new software. If I were, I’d still be using Windows 95. But I am against upgrading unnecessarily when whatever you have still works. In other words, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
on 03 Oct 2007 at 1:27 am 2.Johan Cyprich said …
Its always a good idea to backup your Windows drive when you install software which may cause problems. A good program for doing this is Drive Image XML. It can backup and restore Windows partitions, but you’ll have to create a bootable Windows CD with something like PE Builder to restore your boot partition.
If you backup your Windows partition, you can install any application and if it damages your computer, you can restore it to its previously working state.