Software "updegrade"

Our website's content management system just underwent what the geeks call an 'upgrade.'

Anyone who has experienced an upgrade knows the word is baloney.

Upgrade implies unalloyed improvement.

Improvement may be the intention, but it's not the result.

We've got to calling them degrades, they cause so much trouble for so little obvious benefit.

The law of unintended consequences always seems to be in operation, and while some functions are improved in socalled upgrades, others are messed up.

It involves steps forward perhaps, but always steps backward too.

A new word is needed to capture the sense of the thing getting worse as well as better - an 'updegrade'

TOLLROADSnews 2008-04-19 18:00