"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," has been an aphorism that's been with us for a very long time. In many ways, it's been a guiding principle for me and many other tech folks. However, I'm starting to think that, at least when it comes to computers, we're going to need to retire the practice entirely.
I'll illustrate this with an example. Many of you have followed along with my Broadband Studio project. Because I do so many webcasts, on-air interviews, and broadcasts, I built a studio into a 10x9 foot room.
At the core of that studio is a Mac mini that runs some very precisely configured software. This software handles the audio routing, the green screen chroma key, the lower thirds, and more. It's managed by very carefully constructed scripts. I augment the system with two iPads, one driving a teleprompter, and one that acts as a custom keypad to the broadcast software.
It's tight. It works perfectly. But it's running on OS X Mountain Lion.
Mountain Lion was the ninth major version of OS X. It was released to manufacturing by Apple just about four years ago.
About 18 months later, Mavericks was released. I chose to stick with Mountain Lion because Mavericks had such a rough start. Given the need for all the elements in my studio to work together seamlessly, I decided to keep my Mac mini on Mountain Lion because everything actually did work together.
I figured, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
That strategy stood me in good stead until yesterday. I make a good chunk of my living doing webcasts, so the webcast infrastructure is mission critical.
Yesterday, when I went into the studio to record a webcast, everything broke...
Read more: If it ain't broke, break it: Why putting off software upgrades can make things worse | ZDNet
