Microsoft (Was: Virus Alert !!!)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Wed Mar 7 20:14:56 2001

please see my remarks embedded in the previous post, quoted below.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey S. Sharp" <jss_at_ou.edu>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 5:05 PM
Subject: Microsoft (Was: Virus Alert !!!)


> > > > Why fault Microsoft for making products that are popular and
> > > > common?
> > >
> > > Their products' popularity and commonness is largely *not* a
> > > result of the product's quality.
> >
> > Well... I happen to be a quality engineer and I strongly disagree
> > with your assertion that MS does not produce quality software. So
> > in order to get this discussion on an intellectual tract, I'd be
> > curious as to your definition of software quality, and the specific
> > attributes that define it?
>
> Right. When we ask "what is quality?" we run inevitably into a unsolvable
> semantic debate. My personal definition of 'quality' is kind of fuzzy; I
> believe Microsoft's products lack it for many reasons, including the
following:
>
> (0) They are too big.
> (1) They are too slow.
> (2) They are too buggy.
> (3) They are too ustable.
> (4) They don't use open standards.
> (5) They claim to use open standards, but instead use 'embraced and extended'
> (read: raped) ones that are 'strategically documented'.
> (7) They assume you are an idiot.
> (8) They have inadequate documentation.
> (9) WTF is up with their versioning? JEEZ!
>
regarding items 0..2, how large, slow (define slow), and buggy would be
tolerable?

I can't address item (3) since I don't know what's meant by "ustable," but, in
the event that it's a spelling error for unstabile, I'd ask how untabile it
should be in order to be tolerable.

What's an open standard and who strictly follows it and with what product?
("Strictly follows" means exactly, to the letter, etc.)

Where's (6)?

re: (7) ... that's the only safe assumption.

so ... Who's got adequate documentation?

Who cares what their revisioning scheme is, and why?
>
> > > (2) Their products are designed for idiots.
> >
> > So... I'm an idiot because I use MS products?
>
> No. A man can wear diapers, but that does not make him a baby.
>
> > > Computers are tools for smart people. Should we let evolution
> > > gradually filter out stupid people from the species, or should
> > > we allow them to be our least common denominator, thereby
> > > limiting the power of the species as a whole?
>
While it's true that computers are tools (not toys), so many people wish to make
them into toys, that treating them as tools is senseless.
>
> > I also take exception to your assertion that computers are for "smart"
> > people. Let's see... Not so many years ago, the consensus was that
> > freedom was only for white people, that voting was only for men, and
> > [fill in the blank with your favorite excluded activity / group].
>
> True, until the oppressors learned that there was nothing that made the
> oppressed any less fit for survival. An non-white person can do anything a
> white person can do, and a woman can do anything that a man can do. Stupid
> people, on the other hand, *cannot* do everything that a smart person can do.
> Certainly, there should not be laws to explicitly limit the rights of stupid
> people, but there most definitely should be a limit on what is done to make
> their life easier.
>
Why should what anyone is permitted to do, for any legal reason, be limited?
>
> > There was also a time where you had to be a mechanic in order to
> > drive because the cars were unrelyable and difficult to maintain.
> > Should we exclude every one from driving that can't rebuild an
> > engine or tear down a transmission.
>
> No, but they *are* effectively excluded from rebuilding their engine or
tearing
> down their transmission.
>
... and that's as it should be.
>
> > Let's see... Like the rest of us, you probably watch TV on
> > occassion. Is there anyone on this list (Tony excluded) that could
> > build one from scratch? Does that mean no-one else should be allowed
> > to watch TV? Let's see... If you can't cook, you shouldn't be
> > allowed to eat... If you can't sew, you shouldn't be allowed to wear
> > clothes... If you can't swim, you shuldn't be allowed to bathe...
>
> It's not really about what should be _allowed_, but about what can be _done_.
> If you can't build a TV from scratch, then you probably can't, well, build a
TV
> from scratch. If you can't cook, you probably can't cook. If you can't swim,
> you probably can't swim. If any of these seriously interfered with your
> fitness to survive (as intelligence does), then you would be on the losing end
> of the evolutionary spectrum.
>
likewise, if you can't make the software work the way you want, then you
shouln't waste your time trying. It is your time, however, and nobody pretends
to try to control what you do with it.
>
> > > (3) Their software engineers have given far too much design
> > > control to their marketing droids.
>
Why would anyone believe that programmers (it's difficult to justify using the
words software and engineer in the same paragraph) ever had any control to give
away. Marketing is what determines what direction a company's product line will
take. Well-designed products don't necessarily sell, while well-marketed ones
always do.
>
> > Bull Shit... Without marketing, WINDOWS would have a f***ing command
> > line interface and only the eliteist "smart" people (like yourself)
> > would be entitled to use it.
>
Just exactly what would one do with a command line interface that one can't do
from a DOS window?
>
> Microsoft would have then striven to make more *powerful* products instead of
> things like Bob or MSN, and we would be doing much more with computers than we
> are now.
>
Power isn't the issue. People are, for the most part, too lazy even to think,
so MS has attempted to save them the trouble.
>
> > Marketing is just as important to software engineering as developers
> > are.
>
> No they aren't. I can 'engineer' equally good programs with or without the
> presence of marketroids -- if they stay out of my way. If they try to
> interfere, inevitably the quality of the result is decreased.
>
The only problem is that you can't sell the product without the pre-design
effort of the "marketroids."
> --
> Jeffrey S. Sharp
> jss_at_ou.edu
>
> "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft advertisement
> "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler
>
>
Received on Wed Mar 07 2001 - 20:14:56 GMT