Volatile Software (2012)

This is why I use Debian. You get to stick with a collection of software frozen at old versions that work together, but you still get security patches.

Sometimes it doesn't work so well, though. For example, Apache now has automatic Let's Encrypt support built in, but the version shipping with Debian Stable doesn't support version 2 of the protocol, and the Let's Encrypt servers are soon dropping support for version 1. Same thing with acme-tiny.

A familiar pain to me as well. My solution, at least for software I only use periodically and does everything I want it to, is to just not update it. This is especially true for the times when a company offers a free home version and a paid professional version, and over time slowly strips features from the home version.

So true, all devs should pay attention to backward compatibility, it would make our industry much more robust

Uh, does the author never update their “old” computer? The article makes it seem like the only time they update software packages is by doing a fresh install with a new computer.