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From: Neal Reid on 13 Feb 2010 15:55
In article <1jdqvjv.1oawq5rxdogk7N%dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz>,
dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
> The release notes never tell you everything, just the most significant
> changes.
VERY unprofessional! I worked for many years in I.T. If I had proposed
we ship undocumented updates I would have been fired. That's exactly my
point. I've written hundreds of installers. They were all rigorously
tested (within a testing group separate from the designers/developers).
A great deal of the work involved NOT making assumptions.
> One of the most important "features" in updates to Mac OS X is
> compatibility with future applications that need some API or framework
> change which was introduced in that system version. You are now being
> bitten by that with iTunes 9.
Again, you (appear to) miss the point. I am bitten by iTunes 9 not
because I failed to blindly update - but because Apple choose to release
an upgrade that made a (false) assumption.

Last time - The iTunes 9 installer should fail on a 10.5.6 system
because it CANNOT work there. The documentation makes it clear (if you
dig deeply enough) that iTunes 9 requires 10.5.7. The point at issue is
NOT how I choose to run my system - but how did a company like Apple
manage to release a broken installer and get away with it.

(And for others commenting on backups, that is precisely what I
generally do. I keep complete backups before consciously doing any
upgrade. iTunes 9 installs quite a mess; it is non-trivial to back it
out, even with backups.

(Just out of curiosity, I just checked System Update. It offered me a
chance to apply an update for all users of iLife 09, iWork 09 and
Aperture - none of which I have on my machine (other the the already
erroneously installed.)
From: David Empson on 14 Feb 2010 06:10
Neal Reid <nealreid(a)magma.ca> wrote:

> In article <1jdqvjv.1oawq5rxdogk7N%dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz>,
> dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
> > The release notes never tell you everything, just the most significant
> > changes.
> VERY unprofessional! I worked for many years in I.T. If I had proposed
> we ship undocumented updates I would have been fired. That's exactly my
> point. I've written hundreds of installers. They were all rigorously
> tested (within a testing group separate from the designers/developers).
> A great deal of the work involved NOT making assumptions.

If you are a registered developer (Select or Premier) with access to
pre-release versions, you get much more detailed release notes, but even
they don't list everything which changed.

The general public never sees more information than the summary
presented by Softare Update (or Installer), plus the detailed list of
security fixes (which only gives a general description of each component
which was updated and the problem fixed).

> > One of the most important "features" in updates to Mac OS X is
> > compatibility with future applications that need some API or framework
> > change which was introduced in that system version. You are now being
> > bitten by that with iTunes 9.
> Again, you (appear to) miss the point. I am bitten by iTunes 9 not
> because I failed to blindly update - but because Apple choose to release
> an upgrade that made a (false) assumption.
>
> Last time - The iTunes 9 installer should fail on a 10.5.6 system
> because it CANNOT work there.

The iTunes application itself works. You can use it to manage an iPod
and your own music collection, and to play music. Just some parts of it
don't work (the iTunes store) because they require the WebKit version
which came with Safari 4.

If you think it is a problem, you should complain to Apple via
appropriate channels. Stop grumbling about it here.

> The documentation makes it clear (if you dig deeply enough) that iTunes 9
> requires 10.5.7. The point at issue is NOT how I choose to run my system -
> but how did a company like Apple manage to release a broken installer and
> get away with it.
>
> (And for others commenting on backups, that is precisely what I
> generally do. I keep complete backups before consciously doing any
> upgrade. iTunes 9 installs quite a mess; it is non-trivial to back it
> out, even with backups.
>
> (Just out of curiosity, I just checked System Update. It offered me a
> chance to apply an update for all users of iLife 09, iWork 09 and
> Aperture - none of which I have on my machine (other the the already
> erroneously installed.)

iLife Support is some system-level private frameworks which are used by
and interact with iLife '09, iWork '09, iTunes, Aperture and others. The
main component is the iLife Media Browser. This component also works
with older versions of iLife, so I expect Apple is offering it to every
compatible system version just to cover all the bases. It may contain
bug fixes relating to the iLife Media Browser if you have iLife '08 or
'06 installed, but it mainly targetted at iLife '09 and similar.

--
David Empson
dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz
From: J.J. O'Shea on 14 Feb 2010 07:10
On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:55:18 -0500, Neal Reid wrote
(in article <nealreid-200E20.15551813022010(a)news.magma.ca>):

> In article <1jdqvjv.1oawq5rxdogk7N%dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz>,
> dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
>> The release notes never tell you everything, just the most significant
>> changes.
> VERY unprofessional! I worked for many years in I.T. If I had proposed
> we ship undocumented updates I would have been fired. That's exactly my
> point. I've written hundreds of installers. They were all rigorously
> tested (within a testing group separate from the designers/developers).
> A great deal of the work involved NOT making assumptions.
>> One of the most important "features" in updates to Mac OS X is
>> compatibility with future applications that need some API or framework
>> change which was introduced in that system version. You are now being
>> bitten by that with iTunes 9.
> Again, you (appear to) miss the point. I am bitten by iTunes 9 not
> because I failed to blindly update - but because Apple choose to release
> an upgrade that made a (false) assumption.
>
> Last time - The iTunes 9 installer should fail on a 10.5.6 system
> because it CANNOT work there.

Bullshit. As _you yourself have said_, iTunes 9 actually works in 10.5.6...
except that you can't get to the iTunes store. It plays music, which is the
point. The iTunes store is an afterthought at best.

> The documentation makes it clear (if you
> dig deeply enough) that iTunes 9 requires 10.5.7. The point at issue is
> NOT how I choose to run my system - but how did a company like Apple
> manage to release a broken installer and get away with it.

The only person who thinks it's broken would be you...

>
> (And for others commenting on backups, that is precisely what I
> generally do. I keep complete backups before consciously doing any
> upgrade. iTunes 9 installs quite a mess; it is non-trivial to back it
> out, even with backups.

Again, bullshit. If you have a full clone of your system and if you updated
it before running the installer (which is what you should do...) then all you
need do is boot off the clone and clone it back to your internal hard drive.
Tah-dah! You're back to where you were before you ran the installer.
Depending on how big your internal drive is, that might take a whole 30
minutes or so, maybe 60... and is completely automated. Boot up from the
clone disk, fire up the clone app, and go have lunch. When you come back from
lunch, reboot back onto the internal drive. If you got email or something
similar while you were playing around with the new stuff, then crank up your
TM backup and restore from there. Takes perhaps 10 minutes.

>
> (Just out of curiosity, I just checked System Update. It offered me a
> chance to apply an update for all users of iLife 09, iWork 09 and
> Aperture - none of which I have on my machine (other the the already
> erroneously installed.)

And that update includes stuff not just for those apps, but for general
system items as well, and for older versions of those apps. Which means that
if you don't install it, stuff that expects it to be there will have a
problem.

Do carry on generating problems for yourself. I suspect that the reason why
your system 'breaks' when some updates are applied is _precisely_ because you
don't apply _all_ updates.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

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