Re: Apple Updates

Your program couldn't display an open file dialog. This was not due to a fault of yours or the program, but due to a bug in your code.

Apple Software is thousands of times more complex, and use cases are enormous. Just that is enough to have a multitude of bugs appearing no matter how much testing is done.

Nonetheless, most trivial bugs are not usually addressed in small updates. They tend to be rolled into larger point releases, which fix the big bugs that inevitably crop up when big and complex software hits the real world, where millions of individual, different configurations exist.

There's also security updates, which are not related to bugs, but circumstance. We live in a world where security is taken a lot more seriously than a couple of decades ago (also because it's a world that is a lot more connected and with several orders of magnitude the amount of malicious players).

Apple (and others) tend to make clear which updates are important and which ones are not, and from my recollection have made only one update mandatory (as in, applied without user interaction) in the last decade.

As a biochemical engineer with close ties to physicists I know as a matter of fact that errors and miscalculations are common when theory hits the real world, which is why there are many processes and methodologies to fix and correct them, both during experimentation and in real-world implementation.

Eduo

> On 17 Apr 2018, at 19:44, Daniel Drijard <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> 
> Eduardo, 
> 
>    In general, I hate updates. I certainly accept an update which corrects a clear bug, such as using Pi=2.71828 instead of Pi=3.14159, but I wonder why this could be a regular activity. I would like to avoid updates which add a comma that was forgotten in a note (I exaggerate intentionally). I would like to be told which updates are necessary ---- if this is the case for those frequently distributed by Apple, I wonder how these people can create so many software bugs. In my physicist job, I would have strongly protested against my student, and eventually fired him. 
> 
> Daniel
> 
>> On 17 04 2018, at 18:43, Eduardo Gutierrez de O <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi, Daniel.
>> 
>> Linux has way more updates than Mac. Windows as well. Having said this, updates in Windows usually don't force you to reboot as much as on Mac. At any rate frequent updates are always a good thing (as they're usually security updates).
>> 
>> Nonetheless, Linux is extremely different than MacOS. Even from OSX (which was already a big switch from pre-OSX). We've been longer with OSX than "Classic" by now!
>> 
>> Apple has switches processors several times. It never has needed to change OSes and if we change CPU now it won't require a change of OS either. Mac OS has been running on ARM for many years, just as OSX had been running on Intel for years and System 7 had been running on PPC for a while before we moved from 680x0.
>> 
>> You're still using a Mac from 2001 with OS9. That's 17 years. If Apple decides to switch from Intel all its line to ARM or something else (which I doubt, although we may see dual architecture), you can always continue using your last mac from 2018 until 2035 (17 years) :D
>> 
>>> On 17 Apr 2018, at 13:57, Daniel Drijard <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello, 
>>> 
>>>    Thanks for the information about extensions.
>>> 
>>>   About my difficulty on using or not the extension .txt in files considered by my dialog, I have solved it by using in the dialog the filter “ALL”. Thus, now, files are accepted with the extension .txt or without extension. 
>>> 
>>>    To answer a question of donJ, I use APPLE computers. I have an iMac Retina with the system Sierra (OSX 10.12.6) and a MacBook Pro with El Capitan (OSX 10.11.6). These computers were bought in September 2015 and April 2009, respectively. I have as well a Titanium 15” (OSX 10.4.11) bought in December 2002, which allows me to use OS9. 
>>>    The age of the second induces me to replace it. 
>>> 
>>>    The indecent frequency of updates from Apple induces me to switch to another brand. This is a bit annoying because I started with Apple in 1982 and, now pretty old (82), I did not consider switching for possibly only a few years (?). In addition, I heard that Apple would switch to a new processor and consequently new system (not OSX). The compatibility between successive systems that I appreciated in Apple vanished I think about 15 years ago. Thus, Apple would make a big jump. It may as well start investing money in selling apples. 
>>>   I worked with colleagues in particles Physics at CERN, contributing to the software needed to analyse the very large data collected from our detectors. We created multiple publications about physics results but we do not have a series of frequent modifications (updates), as Apple does. I often wonder if the number of bugs of Apple is larger in an update than in the file it corrects ! The modifications in our software are known (they are distributed within our teams), and rare. Those of Apple are unknown and probably not transmissible. 
>>> 
>>>   Practically, I consider switching to Linux (evidently NOT to Windows ). 
>>>     
>>> Cordially, 
>>> Daniel
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 16 04 2018, at 23:37, donJ <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On 04/16/2018 01:27 PM, Daniel Drijard wrote:
>>>>>     I have a new dialog problem (possibly connected to my recent one). I want to select a text file in a folder. Thus I gather some text files to which I affect or not the extension .txt. Some of them are accessible (accepted) by the dialog, others not. The point is that I have 2 pieces of code which behave differently for this, one requesting the .txt extension the other refusing it.
>>>>>     My question is about understanding what is defining the Text style. There is the .txt extension but there must be an internal file’s characteristic. The program which generated the file must be somewhat indicated in the file.
>>>>>    I do not know what the dialog uses to accept/reject a file.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Daniel
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> Hi Daniel,
>>>> Others can probably help you more with some of this, but maybe this will help.
>>>> 
>>>> There is nothing in a text file that identifies the creator. You can see this if you make a text file with a single ASCII letter in it and check the size. It will be one byte.
>>>> Permissions, dates, etc. are maintained by the file system and used by the file manager. If the .txt extension is not enough, you may have to read the first part of the files and look for some characteristic that your app will identify.
>>>> 
>>>> I don't know what operating system you are using, but it may be that the dialog box is using a system function to select what to include. My linux systems scan the files and if all characters can be interpreted as printable (plus a few CR, TAB, etc) characters, it will try to open the file in a text editor unless the file has executable permissions.
>>>> 
>>>> Don
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Daniel Drijard
>>> Thoiry téléphone : 
>>>   04 50 41 22 75
>>>     international
>>>   +33/4 50 41 22 75
>>> Courriel :
>>>    [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>>> Thoiry F-01710
>>>    48, rue des Savoies
>>> 
>> 
> 
> Daniel Drijard
> Thoiry téléphone : 
>   04 50 41 22 75
>     international
>   +33/4 50 41 22 75
> Courriel :
>    [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> Thoiry F-01710
>    48, rue des Savoies
>