Humanity thrives on progress. We devise better things and better ways of doing things, just to give us enough get-up-and-go when the alarm clock rings. But as the pace of inventions increases, so does the difficulty in keeping up with quality requirements.

Every year, hapless engineering students are faced with a challenge. They are given a case scenario in which they are faced with the requirement to move a certain weight over a specified terrain. Their challenge is to engineer a device to move the goods on land with the least possible difficulty.
There are two correct solutions. The first is to engineer the wheel. The second has yet to be devised, as nobody has yet been able to reinvent the wheel.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the computer industry. As I sit here, I am faced with the prospect of revolutionary new technology revolutionizing my life and productivity. A major new operating system is about to be released.
Regular readers of this column will have gathered that I am a traditionalist as far as computers are concerned. I have spent a major amount of time learning to use my computer productively, and it is actually stable enough to be fairly reliable, albeit propped up with enough anti-virus software and personal firewalls to give a fair-sized headache every time I try to use it.
Unfortunately, my outmoded turn-of-the-millennium software is horribly archaic, and accretions in the operating system, as well as aging processors, mean that I have no real choice but to make a change. I have opted for the most recent operating software but one. The new, new operating system will have to wait a few years, until everyone has stopped complaining, and it has been developed to the point where it is actually something more than a theoretical product which eats patches the way a kid goes for a bowl of sweets.
But I am still faced with the prospect of change which involves reinstallation of my software and a whole lot of work to get all the patches and security up and running again.
The computer industry is a strange place. Nothing is ever released in a final version, and nothing is ever finished. In fact, in the rush to get to market, software is released often indecently early. I cannot remember the last time I installed a piece of software that did not need a patch or an upgrade, normally just before deadline on some piece of work, but more usually just after installing a game and expecting to sit down for an evening’s gratuitous violence.