When I started these threads (there is one like this on Curse) I admit that it was my goal to demonize the use of automatic updater programs.
Ok still with me ? Good
The thing is with someone's opinion it can change over time with more and more discussion on the topic. Even the hardest rock wears down over time with water as Confusicous would say.
I'm now of the opinion that yes you can use an automatic updater program if that floats your boat. Whatever gets the job done quicker for you. It doesn't matter which tool you use to get the job down - checks in from SVN , email updates , favourites list on wow interface, automatic updater programs , IRC and watching for when they submit new updates to the repo , pan handling in front of the author's place of work ... (ok getting a little off track there
)
What matters to me is how often you update you addons and why.
Do you really need every single update an author comes out with ? If there's a bug then you update to the latest version anyway
Here's the thing - if somethings working why update it ?
What I mean here is if it's
* Still working
* Not producing any errors
* Not producing any bugs
* Does everything you need it to do.
* Nothing else you would want it to (this includes being smaller in memory/cpu usage)
Then you should be able to afford to go long lengths of time without a single update.
If all the above is true then you don't need to update that addon. That's my point with my whole "don't download this update" thing. You don't need to download every single update out there. Some addons will work absolutely fine without any updates to them as long as they aren't producing any bugs.
EG I'm still using an addon that does 1 thing and does it really well. It was last updated in July 2006. It's a few lines of code (maybe 7 or 8) for hooking the tooltip onto the mouse. The API call it uses hasn't been changed so it doesn't need an update.
Ok my friend
. My experience from posts from wow matrix users is slightly different.
They come into a forum where something like this is being discussed and blast the decision by wowinterface/curse to block WM. Not to get off topic here but I assume that if they are so angry because they are now in convenienced because of this. From this I then assume that they are updating all their mods every day or every 2 days.
Now if it's 1-2 times per week does it really matter how long it takes you ? Or what method you use to update ?
Well I don't know about that. During the bad days of Threat-2.0 if you had different versions of addons it would cause you to be having different threat numbers.
Those days are past us. We now have accurate threat numbers. I don't know of any particular addons that cause problems when you have different versions of the addons.
What my former raid leader use to do for essential raid mods was to post a link to the stable versions of the essential raid mods to the guild forums. He would tell the whole guild "before raiding check this thread and make sure you have these versions of the raid mods downloaded.
I'm not trying to push my way onto others. If I have then I sincerely apologise. You can lead a horse to water but no matter what you do sometimes you just can't get him to drink.
And what's the worse thing that can happen if you can for extended periods of time without updating ? Have a wee think about that and let me know what you think
I think Shirik's posted that roll backs are a feature coming in a later version. That would be cool
PS I've not looked at any of my addon update emails since May 03. I did have a problem with Chatter that I did download an update for. Other than that the rest of my addons have not been updated since then. My UI is working fine.