Rolling Release vs Stable Release Software… Which One To Choose?
We don’t realize this, but this plays a huge role in your life as a software user. It could waste time and getting nothing in return, or being efficient and making your life better.
Software has to keep making itself better, improving, and thus getting new releases every time. Some updates are just “security improvement” or “performance improvements” (come on Android… I want to know what), and some of them are legit improvements either in the front end or backend. There are two kinds of update processes we need to focus on, both for software developers and their users, so that they/you can make the right decision.
Although there are many more types of release cycles or update cycles, we will just focus on the two most general and simple ones for the purpose of simplification of this article. I will make more article on the rest of the types.
First Off… Why does release cycle matter to a software dev/user?
Because it simply means life or death to your usage and experience. A person who loves stable might not want to use groundbreaking software and, at the same time, a person who loves groundbreaking software does not want to use a stable and old software. This is just one of the hassles — Your personal bias and choice.
Another problem is the reliability. Some of you might not feel much when a software asks for an update while you are in the middle of some work, so long the software provided actual useful updates whereas some of you might not want software updates at all and prefer it to be happen few times with larger commits and changes.
This would matter especially if you are the software developer yourself since making your software groundbreaking and exposing it to bugs or making it very stable and letting the features go unnoticeable, both would affect the user experience of the software itself, which I assume, you don’t want.
Software Rolling Release
This is a release cycle where in the software does not have a specific release date or release schedule. It’s released slowly, gently, but consistently and with very short intervals like every few weeks/days. The advantage you get here is that it’s just short and quick process which should be done by you every few times a week and you can also skip some updates now and then considering the updates are very small.
This works for you if you want the software to be bleeding edge, where everything is in its latest and the greatest form, and you want it to be giving you surprise now and then.
Software Stable Release
This, as the name suggests, gives you not a very “latest” experience, but it will give you a stable experience with fewer bugs, more corrections and “improvements” rather than “new all the time”. This not only means that it would not bug you with software updates for a while, but it also would use up the time when he would actually update. Since it updates every 6 months or every year, it has stable, yet very high amount of software update commits and features.
This is very useful to those who don’t want anything to do with the software they use. They just want the software to work for them and that’s it. It also would be a perfect cycle for servers and other sorts of backend softwares which the user doesn’t know or care much about.
Personally?
I’m one of those guys where if I get a major software update, I know that I’m in for something new… Maybe a new design, UI, etc. Which I feel like I want now and then for a better change in my workflow and the looks of the software so that I would not get bored. So I’m probably the rolling guy. What are you? Let me know in the comment section.
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You’re Awesome :)
Fadingeek
