Early in my career my boss would ask me to audit the equipment each May. I had to double check the hardware and software versions to ensure they were up to date, or as close as we could get them. I was working at a university and things quieted down after the students left in June which gave us a window for maintenance. And to this day the first Monday in May is when I double check the status of my equipment.
MySQL 8.0.24 came out last month and I had not upgraded my various computers. Fedora & Ubuntu have also recently sent out new versions and I am up to date on one and not the other. My favorite email program had an update and the two browsers I use most also had updates. And my corporate IT folks have some updates they wanted me to run.
Why do this effort? First is that there are bug fixes, updates, and new features. A lot of engineering talent's time is wasted by folks not performing updates. The following is a example of a conversation that I have regularly.
"Hey Dave, when will MySQL have feature X? I really, really need it!"
"We added it two years ago in version 8.0.14."
I understand the 'if it is not broke do not fix it mentality' on a lot of things but not software updates that can be vital to your organization. There may be a security path you need, or a memory leak plugged, or a more efficient function in that update.
I can understand a reluctance to upGrade (not upDate) until a new release has proven itself. By the way for those of you wanting to wait for MySQL 8.0 to mature should note that it has been out for over three years! So those wanting histograms, window functions, and many new other features should be well on their upgrade path.
So take some time week and double check to see what you are running. This is an area where you do not want surprises.
