Rate in progress (was PHYS_L COURTESY)

[Ludwik Kowalski <KowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

Doug Craigen wrote:

> One of the major things I do to "upgrade" people's computers
> is to bring them back to software versions which make sense
> for their hardware. Anecdotes about, but here's an example...

Let me share an illustration for abusing the "updating". In the last
two years I was learning how to use WebCT, a software package
for on-line teaching. I started using WebCT last year as an
additional component of regular face-to-face encounters. The
older versions of the product (up to August 2000) had a difficult
interface and the company decided to improve the situation. So
they came with version 3. To me it was a totally new software;
everything I learned in the last two years was no longer useful.

Why didn't they say it is a new and better product? Why didn't
they give this product a new name? Because it would mean
loosing customers. They say it is the same product (under the
hood), only the interface is difference. It may be so but as far
as I am concerned the interface is everything. So I voted with
my feet. Naturally, the option of using the old version is still
available and many people here use it. But by doing this they
are using a product which is no longer 100% supported, as
the new product is.

Investing too much time into a software is a risky business.
I learned Pascal but nobody uses it anymore. Teachers should
be protected from products which are not stable. By whom?
I do not know. By states, by districts, by schools? A new
version, for example, should be backward compatible with
the previous one, as Fortran is. Otherwise the labeling of the
product as "a new version" should be illegal. How can one
benefit for innovations when things change so rapidly?
Ludwik Kowalski