Jose M. Gilgado writes about WordStar 4.0, a preferred phrase processor from the early 80s. “As previous because it appears, George R.R. Martin used it to jot down “A Music of Ice and Hearth”.
Why would somebody use such an previous piece of software program to jot down over 5,000 pages? I really like how he places it: “It does every little thing I desire a phrase processing program to do and it doesn’t do anything. I don’t need any assist. I hate a few of these fashionable methods the place you sort up a lowercase letter and it turns into a capital. I don’t desire a capital, if I’d wished a capital, I might have typed the capital.”
Jose goes on to reward the fantastic thing about completed software program. He says completed software program is software program that isn’t anticipated to alter. And that’s a function. As a result of you may depend on it to do some actual work.
For me, the stream of fixed updates and modifications to software program are each virtuous and troublesome. It’s a phenomenal factor when your instruments enhance in a single day. You don’t get up within the morning and count on your trusty ole’ hammer to have some new performance, however this occurs on a regular basis within the software program world. Alternatively, you may as well belief your hammer to work precisely the way in which it did yesterday. What number of occasions have you ever launched a software program software solely to seek out its maker has rearranged issues, ruining your workflow within the course of.
Jose winds up by saying, “In a world the place fixed change is the norm, completed software program gives a breath of recent air. It’s a reminder that reliability, consistency, and person satisfaction can coexist within the realm of software program improvement. So the subsequent time you end up craving for the newest replace, do not forget that generally, one of the best software program is the one which doesn’t change in any respect.”
