This is a note to self and all the people out there, working mostly on the open source softwares. Upgrading the softwares regularly is very essential and necessary process in product development.
Step back from constant feature development and try to scrutinise the health of all of your softwares and machines. Note all the packages which needs an upgrade and look out for the dependencies. It might be the case that the support for a particular version of software is not available now. Or it might be the case that there are some interesting and good features in the upgraded software that you could have used in your product development, but alas, you are still on a older version and not able to use it.
As a norm, what i will follow is to subscribe to the email lists of the softwares that we are using, so that i am updated with all the changes that are happening. I will try and maintain the version that is best suitable for us. If that requires some time apart from the feature development, so be it.
Choose your priority diligently, because in a startup we are constantly looking out to churn new features and handling customers, but make it a norm that from time to time do a thorough health check of the whole infra. Automated alert system is not enough. Obviously it takes time, but having the whole sytem down is much more lethal for your business then not having a peripheral feature.
Prioritise Wisely!
