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Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

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Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#11

Post by oihuyjfrgtdfghj »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #9

Seriously though, is all of this fixed in Windows 7, or are people just hyping that up because it sucks alot less than any previous Windows iterations? I don't think I've _ever_ seen a process that convoluted, and I've been using Linux OSes since _before_ the advent of dependency-resolvers like yum and apt (i.e, the bad old days of "RPM hell").

Yes it's all fixed in Win7 if you just want to roll over and let it force you to use IE and Bing and Hotmail for everything.

As soon as you try not to use IE suddenly you can't do anything

Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#13

Post by Semiapies »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #3

The fact that Gates regularly attempted to eat Microsoft's dog food (alas he couldn't get the can open in this case) is encouraging; but ultimately it doesn't seem to have helped much.

When you make so much different dog food, there's only so much you can eat and complain about.

Mind, people seem to have better experiences with Windows now than they did in the 90s. (Remember WindowsME? Gah...) Maybe Gates' attention and hectoring did help.

Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#14

Post by loumf »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #9

Seriously though, is all of this fixed in Windows 7, or are people just hyping that up because it sucks alot less than any previous Windows iterations? I don't think I've _ever_ seen a process that convoluted, and I've been using Linux OSes since _before_ the advent of dependency-resolvers like yum and apt (i.e, the bad old days of "RPM hell").

Here's Eric Raymond on Cups for a Unix perspective. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html

Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#15

Post by sandipagr »

oihuyjfrgtdfghj wrote: post #11
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #9

Seriously though, is all of this fixed in Windows 7, or are people just hyping that up because it sucks alot less than any previous Windows iterations? I don't think I've _ever_ seen a process that convoluted, and I've been using Linux OSes since _before_ the advent of dependency-resolvers like yum and apt (i.e, the bad old days of "RPM hell").

Yes it's all fixed in Win7 if you just want to roll over and let it force you to use IE and Bing and Hotmail for everything. As soon as you try not to use IE suddenly you can't do anything

Only time I ever used IE was to download Firefox when I first installed windows 7. So, I have no idea what you are talking about. My experiences haS been great.

Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#16

Post by muhfuhkuh »

redstripe wrote: post #5
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #3

The fact that Gates regularly attempted to eat Microsoft's dog food (alas he couldn't get the can open in this case) is encouraging; but ultimately it doesn't seem to have helped much.

If he did send out stuff like this often and nobody gave a damn then that's really discouraging. There go my "if I ran Microsoft" fantasies. /sigh I've always imagined one of the reasons Apple products are so polished is because Steve rides people like this all day long until they stop sucking.

Too big + too many smart and creative people = impossible to manage without being a complete dictator

Google is running into this. Their track record of late is spotty at best, and it's because their culture is too wild-west and "throw on wall, see if stick" style.

As much as geniuses are really good at solving problems plaguing modern society, they are really bad at focussing. They need leaders that understand them, like John Lasseter at Pixar. Alternatively, they need equally-genius benevolent dictators like Linus Torvalds (Linux, Git) to keep them in check. Failing that, they need supremely smart, pile-driving, and obliquely techie-cum-marketing obsessed leaders like Jobs at Apple.

Gates + Ballmer = those things above, but you really need one voice, not two. I think Google is having the same trouble having Sergey and Larry's style squaring almost diametrically against Eric Schmidt's.

Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#17

Post by mgrouchy »

redstripe wrote: post #5
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #3

The fact that Gates regularly attempted to eat Microsoft's dog food (alas he couldn't get the can open in this case) is encouraging; but ultimately it doesn't seem to have helped much.

If he did send out stuff like this often and nobody gave a damn then that's really discouraging. There go my "if I ran Microsoft" fantasies. /sigh I've always imagined one of the reasons Apple products are so polished is because Steve rides people like this all day long until they stop sucking.

In my mind (if we are having fantasies/visions about what happens at these companies) Steve jobs wouldn't write an email, he would walk down to these guys or get someone else to get them, pull them into a conference room, yell at them, threaten to fire them and maybe break some shit.

Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#18

Post by benbeltran »

This made me think a bit about Bill Gates and Microsoft and Everything. People really hate on Bill Gates because of Microsoft and their products, but after seeing this email you get to see that he's as angry as any other user, and even more because he knows all of this will fall back to him. His email portrays not only anger, but some kind of impotence. It's impressive how big companies lose touch with what they're doing. Most software I use lately comes from small companies, they have this dedication and attention to detail that only comes from when you're directly involved with your product. Business is a weird world.

Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#19

Post by bmelton »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #9

Seriously though, is all of this fixed in Windows 7, or are people just hyping that up because it sucks alot less than any previous Windows iterations? I don't think I've _ever_ seen a process that convoluted, and I've been using Linux OSes since _before_ the advent of dependency-resolvers like yum and apt (i.e, the bad old days of "RPM hell").

Windows 7 is pretty good actually, on its own. It's especially good if you compare it to any previous version of Windows (though I confess to having had good luck out of Win2k Pro.)

I see a comment elsewhere stating that it's good if you let it pigeonhole you into using IE and Bing, but that's nonsense. I'm using Chrome and Duck Duck Go and all sorts of non-Microsoftian stuff, and everything works just fine on the rather non-standard setup that I have.

Re: Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

#20

Post by jshen »

redstripe wrote: post #5
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #3

The fact that Gates regularly attempted to eat Microsoft's dog food (alas he couldn't get the can open in this case) is encouraging; but ultimately it doesn't seem to have helped much.

If he did send out stuff like this often and nobody gave a damn then that's really discouraging. There go my "if I ran Microsoft" fantasies. /sigh I've always imagined one of the reasons Apple products are so polished is because Steve rides people like this all day long until they stop sucking.

riding people isn't the solution, the problem is usually structural. Take any product and there are 5 to 10 teams involved in it's development and they all push their own little pet ideas. Rarely is there ever a single leader with a single vision that is also involved in the day to day development and decision making. Instead the person that should do this does what you suggest, they swing in every once in a while, complain complain complain, then switch focus to some other project for a bit, while never taking to time to solve the real problem.

well, that's my sad experience from a couple of big companies.

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