I’ve been thinking about what would be the “perfect” software—something that never needs updates after its initial release.
Picture a little program with a version number like “1.08.” It’s been that way for years and tons of people still use it. Why hasn’t it updated? Because it doesn’t need to. This software is just perfect. It doesn’t even have any forks, except maybe for some minor UI tweaks.
As I tried to think of real software that fits this description, I couldn’t come up with a single example.
So, I’m trying to figure out which types of software could actually be “perfect” in this way, and if there are any examples of such software. For instance, archiving software probably wouldn’t fit because new archiving methods keep coming up. An outdated archiver would lose its usefulness over time.
What I want to find out is: which types of software could be “perfect,” and are there any examples out there?
The only “perfect” software is probably going to be something super basic like a “Hello World” program, a simple calculator, or any really straightforward tool that just does one thing. Plus, if it relies on libraries and those libraries have security issues, you’ll have to recompile or relink everything. So yeah, it’s not as simple as it sounds…
One-trick-pony apps don’t necessarily have to be simple. They can be complex and also bug-free. I use Paint Shop Pro 7.02, for example. No crashes and it’s not a simple app.
Assuming you’re talking about using it on modern OSs that need to keep supporting old stuff, like if Windows decides to go 64-bit only in the next 10 years, then your version of Paint Shop Pro will end up needing updates.
Yeah, I just meant that right now they have 32-bit compatibility, but no software is truly “perfect” if you want to keep upgrading the system because eventually, support for older stuff will get dropped.
Like on macOS, they dropped 32-bit support even though old games like Diablo were running fine.