Editing 2224: Software Updates

{{comic
| number    = 2224
| date      = November 5, 2019
| title     = Software Updates
| image     = software_updates.png
| titletext = Everything is a cloud application; the ping times just vary a lot.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CLOUD APPLICATION. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

As time passes, upgrades to most products are inevitable, with software being no exception.

However, as many updates create multiple versions, support for all of them can become a bit of a hassle for the company that creates them, so old versions frequently become unsupported after some years, or in some cases even months, of their releases.

For users that prefer to stay on old editions because of unfavorable changes in the newer programs, this can mean that they are left unsupported, causing them to become more susceptible to hard to solve bugs, newly discovered security vulnerabilities, or incompatibilities with newer versions of operating system or other software.  Emulators or virtual machines are one way to keep such a program running as though it were in its native environment.

The punchline of the comic is the caption underneath the panel, "All software is software as a service". {{w|Software as a Service}} (SaaS) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software runs on the vendor's computers (servers), accessed by customers remotely. The software is said to run "in the cloud" as "cloud applications". Customers purchase subscription licenses. Since the only copy of the software is that which the vendor runs on their own computers, all customers use the one latest version of the software, which is upgraded whenever the vendor chooses to. If the vendor removes or changes a feature that the customer prefers, or introduces a bug, the customer has no ability to remain with an older version. A major benefit of SaaS is that the customer never has to do anything to upgrade to the latest version of the software to get fixes to newly discovered bugs or security vulnerabilities. A major disadvantage of SaaS is that the customer may lose some feature of the software that they depend on, or get impacted by a new bug that is introduced by an upgrade to the software, and has no ability to run the older version.

With traditionally marketed software that they purchase to run on their own computers, customers can choose not to upgrade. Vendors will stop providing support for their oldest versions, which can cause problems for those customers who do not upgrade when bugs or security vulnerabilities are discovered, or newer versions of operating systems require changes in the software. A customer may eventually be forced into the bind of having to upgrade just to be able to run the software, but then lose the feature in the software that they depend on.

Since vendors eventually stop supporting the older versions of software, and over time more problems may appear that make it more difficult to continue to run the unsupported versions, in a way all software has the same disadvantages that SaaS presents by forcing everyone to upgrade. In that sense "All software is Software as a Service".

The title text refers to a different aspect of cloud applications. Since they run "in the cloud" on remote computers, they are subject to the effects of network speed to the servers. The time for data to be sent to a server and a response to be received back is called the "ping time". 

Since a "cloud server" is just a computer, there is no fundamental difference between software running remotely and software running locally on a user's computer. The biggest difference is that software running locally will respond almost instantly to user input, whereas software running remotely may take longer to respond, since the data first needs to be sent over a network (the internet), processed, and then sent back to the user's computer. In addition, the chance of data loss (packet loss) may cause the response to be even slower, as data has to be re-sent, or often result in no response at all. Hence, in practice, this can have an enormous impact on the experience of using remote software vs software that runs locally (as anyone who has tried online gaming on a laggy server can attest). 

However, technically speaking, there is a nonzero time taken for the data to travel from the user's keyboard onto the computer, across the various circuitry, and back to the monitor. Hence there is a "ping" time even for a local computer (in fact, many "gaming" monitors advertise low input lag, in the order of 1-5 milliseconds, as a feature). Therefore, you could technically say that all applications are cloud applications, just that some (local computers) have very fast ping times whereas for others (servers on another continent) it may be quite slow. 

This ignores the fact that being a "cloud application" implies that it runs on a server in a remote location. The joke is like saying that everyone commutes to work - including those that "work from home" - but their commute times just vary a lot. For example, consider the "commute" from your bedroom to your home office.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[A graph with Time on the X-axis and Software Version Number on the Y-axis. The upper line is labeled]

Newest Version

[which shows the version number of each new version of the software at the time it is released. The lower line is labeled]

Oldest Supported Version

[which shows the version number of the oldest version that the vendor of the software provides support for at each time. The area between the two lines is shaded and is labeled]

Support Zone

[At each point in time, the vertical column of shaded area goes from the oldest version that is supported then up to the latest version that is available then. At each version number point, the horizontal shaded area goes from the time that version was released to the time that support for that version was dropped]

[Inside the shaded ares is a solid line that is labeled at the start point with]

First Install

[which is the version and the time at which the author first installed the software. The line itself is labeled]

My current version

[which shows the version number the author has installed at any time. The line goes up at each time that he upgraded to a new version.]

[One point of that line is labeled]

An update finally breaks a feature I'm unwilling to lose

[That point is at a time where the Newest Version line goes up and My Current Version stays horizontal for the rest of the time line, showing that he is unwilling to upgrade any more]

[The My Current Version line to the right of the shaded area is labeled]

??? The Abyss

[with an arrow pointing to the right in the direction of increasing time. That is the time of unknown effects as he continues to use an increasingly old version of the software that does not receive any of the new features, bug and security fixes, or compatibility upgrades that are released in the new versions]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Programming]]