Deltas Only Please!
Ξ May 15th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Coding, Give me Strength, Microsoft, Mumble, Programming |
This stuff makes me wonder!
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I can’t believe that for SP1 [Office 2007] that there are 322Mb of actual code changes – I mean the complete bloody product is only [only!] 532Mb to begin with! [BTW, despite what the text says regarding Ultimate Extras, the chosen updates were *just* the Office 2007 SP1 updates]
So what we’re getting here is component updates as opposed to, for want of a better term, code updates – it goes like this:
- Microsoft fixes a bug with a code change.
- The code is recompiled – the result being, of course, that the entire component changes [of which the fix is a tiny part].
- The entire component is then wrapped-up in a Microsoft update, and then the update is downloaded and installed by the consumer.
What *should* happen is:
- Microsoft fixes a bug with a code change.
- The code is recompiled – the result being, of course, that the entire component changes [of which the fix is a tiny part].
- The difference between the now out-of-date component and the ‘new’ is determined – this is called ‘a delta’.
- The delta is then wrapped-up in a Microsoft update, and then the update is downloaded and installed by the consumer. The update is of course a little ’smarter’ now – as the installer has to ‘patch’ the old component with just the changes – rather than replacing the complete thing.
Now I *know* that Microsoft can do this sort of thing, so why don’t they? I’d certainly like to know how much extra energy and bandwidth would be saved if they did it the right way!