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IBM Bob

bob.ibm.com

291–300 of 352 posts

Re: IBM Bob

#293
post #210

You should never name a tech product Bob in the UK, because the moment it isn't perfect, it'll just get called "Bobbins" [0], especially where I'm from. I wish IBM got better at product again, and took themselves off the services and consulting morphine they've been on for ~35 years now since OS/2 Warp flopped. Their 1980s/1990s hardware was great. Their software actually was great until Win95 took their lunch money.…

We did a deal with IBM back in the day to adapt our tech as the code generation for enterprise java beans. The commercial guy I dealt with made it very clear that a primary concern was IBM not being humiliated and shafted like their MS dealings. It colored our commercial arrangements, which had to include "break glass" arrangements for them to gain full access to our source code.

How to not learn from your mistakes and actually make them worse. I wonder how many valuable alliances they lost just because of that fear. Whoever was willing to sign was already probably not going to be a threat.

Re: IBM Bob

#294

You should never name a tech product Bob in the UK, because the moment it isn't perfect, it'll just get called "Bobbins" [0], especially where I'm from. I wish IBM got better at product again, and took themselves off the services and consulting morphine they've been on for ~35 years now since OS/2 Warp flopped. Their 1980s/1990s hardware was great. Their software actually was great until Win95 took their lunch money.…

Also in the UK and never heard of this in my life. Guessing this is very regional?

Might also mark you out as a certain age if not from the right region - I’m familiar with it as a word for “a bit rubbish” because of listening to Mark & Lard’s late night show on Radio 1 in the 90s

Re: IBM Bob

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are wrong. IBMer here. I was at first agains it, my background is for 2 decades startup(s) before I joined IBM, and I started slowly using IBM Bob and I must say it is really good and helping. With many integrations that works :)

Are you allowed to use Cursor, Codex, Claude, or OpenCode or is Bob all they allow?

Official policy is to only use Bob. All of the best people I work with are using other tools because Bob is trash.

Re: IBM Bob

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are wrong. IBMer here. I was at first agains it, my background is for 2 decades startup(s) before I joined IBM, and I started slowly using IBM Bob and I must say it is really good and helping. With many integrations that works :)

What is good about it then? What model do you use? Which integration are we talking about? Is it open source? How much the "transparent pricing" "bobcoin" is worth?

It's not good, they hide the model (their whole thing is hidden model routing to keep costs low, but predictably yields bad results), there are no novel integrations not available in any other harness, it's closed source, and bobcoin is worthless because it's only usable with Bob.

Re: IBM Bob

#298

Ever since the Watson debacle I just run the other way anytime IBM turns up wanting to talk about AI

just AI? Have you seen the other rubbish they try to peddle?

Re: IBM Bob

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printers are just a loss leader for toner.

If you put 90% of the electronics into the cartridge and the printer box is just a paper feeder - that's not exactly surprising.

HP retail ink cartridge prices are not a cost issue.
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