Comments on: "Supported versions" crap

By: Elektra

Elektra — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:18:10 +0000

Indeed the software is mostly written in Perl and C using Motif graphics interface and, YES, ORACLE database. But the point here is that what crashed was a custom (customer specific) script written in Perl, long before the actual Perl interpreter version exists. So that might be the case that newer Perl interpreter doesn’t run the script that used to run fine with the previous Perl interpreter version… maybe the problem then is not on the miswritten script, because it used to work with previous Perl interpreter and now it doesn’t anymore…

By: Pedro Timóteo

Pedro Timóteo — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 22:43:06 +0000

Nuno: I know that. In this last case, it was really a question of working. And I’ve seen dozens of cases where it seemed to work, but would crash, and crash, and crash, and crash, without any “normal” reason – just because it wasn’t using the exact library version (including minor version) they were able to compile it with.

“Support”, as in, “you pay us thousands of dollars a month, and, when it breaks, you can call us”, is another matter – but, IMO, as inexcusable as the first.

It’s acceptable to say “requires version X.Y.X or later”. It’s not acceptable to say “requires version X.Y.Z, period”.

By: Nuno

Nuno — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 22:27:37 +0000

There is a world of difference between “working” and being “supported”.

By: Pedro Timóteo

Pedro Timóteo — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 20:02:12 +0000

It’s one of the best examples, yes. Though what inspired this post today was when a co-worker talked about some (bought) application which only worked with a very old Perl version (I don’t think the software itself was in Perl, but it used it for something…).

By: CPinto

CPinto — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 19:52:01 +0000

LOL! Oracle software yes?