Apps are today's CDs

Over the past 20 years, we've gone from shipping software on CDs to instant updates on the web. Though, as with most things in engineering, it's only a tradeoff. Let's explore why.

When it took months to prepare a release and literally ship it, teams took their time to make sure everything worked as expected. Mileage varied, of course. You can take space shuttle avionics as an extreme example.

I feel like today's equivalent of shipping CDs are apps that require downloading and updating. iPhone apps, browser extensions, things like that. Once it's in the user's hands, you don't have to worry about keeping a server running. It runs on the user's platform. Have you ever been on-call? You ship the bugs away, but when they cause problems, they are also further away from getting fixed.

If there's a problem with Airbnb's booking page, the fix can be deployed as soon as someone is done fixing it, without delays. No need to wait for an update, for a CD in the mail. Wonderful!

The trade-off is that you have the full burden of keeping the infrastructure running.

The more bugs you expect to have, the closer you should be when they need to be fixed.

Anyone who designs a system that escapes this tradeoff could very well have designed the next thing after the web.