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Can desktop software be continuously developed?

13th September 2005, 12:35 pm

Can desktop software be continuously developed?:

Between the Lines comments:

» Bill: Give us the new Office 12 interface now | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

…the new model for software today is continuous improvement, not big bang costly upgrades that promise “better results, faster” in 18 months or two years…

Indeed.

But it may not be that easy.  It’s the delivery mechanism, the Place in marketing speak, that gets in the way.  Because desktop software typically doesn’t auto-upate on each launch, it needs to have fewer bugs at the time the user installs it.  Server-based software can be updated anytime, and users receive the benefits of new features and bug fixes on their next launch without any hassle.

RIAs are the key to bridge this gap…

Welllll, sort of.  Let me tell you a story about SecondLife.  I’m not a daily visitor to Secondlife, but, I might pop in twice a week for a minute or two.  Nearly every time I launch the app, there’s a new version.  Seriously.  Once a week.  20+ Megs of downloading, almost every time I launch the program.  Usually to fix a simulator-critical bug that causes EVERYONE to have to upgrade before they can get in.  It borders on ridiculous.

Then there’s Ecto… which updates every month or so, much more sane, but, if I don’t update, it’ll remind me to download the update even if I already have, but haven’t installed it yet.  “remind me in a week” would be nice here. Or, even better, “remind me after my next reboot”.

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