VaelHeals t1_jbtjyah wrote on March 11, 2023 at 4:34 PM

Reply to comment by CntrldChaos in Microsoft is bringing back classic Taskbar features on Windows 11 — but not because it screwed up by AliTVBG

A developer has an idea. They or a hired programmer write a series of conditional instructions for a computer to carry out that best matches the desired functionality of the "program," and the developer iterates on those instructions until the resultant program reflects the developer's (or the customer's) vision for it.

Is that the gist of it?

CntrldChaos t1_jbtk6bp wrote on March 11, 2023 at 4:35 PM

How do software product lifecycles work exactly? How is it possible for a company to both build something new and not have a feature they used to have? That’s the question related to the article and a key part of how software development works.

VaelHeals t1_jbtlh12 wrote on March 11, 2023 at 4:44 PM

I'd imagine there's a version in development at all times, for something as pervasive as windows.

It's possible that support for features may be dropped as technology changes, such as floppy disks going obsolete. It doesn't make sense, however, to drop a feature that is currently used and well-liked.

CntrldChaos t1_jbtm6rd wrote on March 11, 2023 at 4:49 PM

You know, rather than assume you could just ask how it’s possible.

There are times you rebuild something from scratch and old versions of code in that case don’t make sense. In some cases you can copy it over but in many cases it just wouldn’t make sense with the new structure of the project. You basically are rebuilding your product from scratch and prioritizing the most important features to recreate first. You then have to make it worth it for the customer so you build new features too. On the backlog you keep a list of things you likely want to bring back but are less pressing.