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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?"

#121

Post by chc »

vetinari wrote: post #118
chc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xbox was revolutionary. Online multiplayer on a console had been tried many times before — as far back as the Sega Genesis and as recently as the Xbox's rival, Playstation 2 — and failed miserably every time. Microsoft was the first company to make it work, and their current implementation is still probably the best. And I don't know any developer who would dismiss Visual Studio. In most regards, it's a best-of-breed…

> And I don't know any developer who would dismiss Visual Studio. You are new around here, right? Make yourself comfortable and you will know droves of them in no time. ;)

I would be fascinated to hear from them. I know lots of developers don't use Visual Studio for some reason or another (I'm one of them), but I've never heard anyone call Visual Studio a poor IDE.

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

#122

Post by wglb »

chc wrote: post #86
bni wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those are "mee too products". Not breaking new ground, and certainly not the best of options.

Xbox was revolutionary. Online multiplayer on a console had been tried many times before — as far back as the Sega Genesis and as recently as the Xbox's rival, Playstation 2 — and failed miserably every time. Microsoft was the first company to make it work, and their current implementation is still probably the best. And I don't know any developer who would dismiss Visual Studio. In most regards, it's a best-of-breed…

I used VS for the better part of my 10-year stint at a BFE, and it served rather well. However, i would be reluctant to go back to it having spent serious quality time with emacs.

The plus about it is that it has all the stuff that you need to build the final payload/program/assembly/whatever. My discomfort with it these days would be that it requires too much mouse work.

(And best-of-breed sounds very BFE, or something that Gartner would say, hardly the people I would look to to know what is going on).

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

#123

Post by jkantro »

After recently working with Microsoft on a project for 8 months all I can say is the way their product team offices are set up is quite bad. The user experience designers and visual designers are sitting hallways down from the developers and program managers. This is not how it should be. All stakeholders in the application design process should be near each other. Open work spaces do wonders for communication and collaboration, which in turn affects product design.

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

#124

Post by Jkeg »

jshen wrote: post #20
redstripe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, c…

Well yes. Microsoft is often said to have problems with teams competing internally (pointlessly), or just not working together. However, that's a management choice that can come from the top. If there's one thing a "Chief Software Architect" should do, it's make sure all software teams are in the habit of communicating and collaborating whenever possible. It doesn't seam like that happened here.

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

#125

Post by jedberg »

philwelch wrote: post #93
jedberg wrote: post #81

I think by far the most telling part of this was this quote: "Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?" No wonder he has no idea how horrible Windows is. He resets it every day.

Until sleep mode (and laptops) became the social custom, lots of people shut down at night and booted up in the morning.

I'm well aware of that. I'm just saying that most of us hard core folks did not, which is why we complain more about Windows.

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

#126

Post by chc »

wglb wrote: post #122
chc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xbox was revolutionary. Online multiplayer on a console had been tried many times before — as far back as the Sega Genesis and as recently as the Xbox's rival, Playstation 2 — and failed miserably every time. Microsoft was the first company to make it work, and their current implementation is still probably the best. And I don't know any developer who would dismiss Visual Studio. In most regards, it's a best-of-breed…

I used VS for the better part of my 10-year stint at a BFE, and it served rather well. However, i would be reluctant to go back to it having spent serious quality time with emacs. The plus about it is that it has all the stuff that you need to build the final payload/program/assembly/whatever. My discomfort with it these days would be that it requires too much mouse work. (And best-of-breed sounds very BFE, or someth…

Heh, I don't know a better word for it. That's how people who are enthusiastic about IDEs tend to talk. I would hesitate to call it "awesome" or anything like that, but among IDEs, it's well thought-of.

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

#127

Post by emehrkay »

Hexstream wrote: post #10

"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."

Golden. As is this line

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

It's funny how far we've come, with today's out of the box search tools this wouldnt be a problem

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

#128

Post by OpieCunningham »

tptacek wrote: post #75
mrshoe wrote: post #8

If Gates had maintained a dictatorial death grip on his company like Steve Jobs has, MS probably could have made some decent products. It's one thing to yell at the people who made this system via email. It's quite another to never allow them to ship it in the first place .

Utterly unfair comparison. The Apple and Microsoft business models are so unlike each other it's almost inaccurate to say they're in the same business. Apple can get product quality to the point they do because they laser focus on a few profitable segments. Microsoft's business model --- not "what Steve Ballmer thinks they should be doing this month" but their underlying business model --- involves them serving 80+%…

> This is sort of like complaining that Safeway can't make ice cream as well as Ben and Jerry's.

And in fact, Safeway doesn't make ice cream as well as Ben and Jerry's. It's ice cream, not apples and oranges.

Apple is in a few markets where they serve a large majority of the market (music players being the obvious). There is probably room for Apple to improve on those products, but I suspect most rational people would not claim Apples products in those markets are as poorly made as most of Microsofts products. Effectively, it is not the unfair comparison you claim.

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

#129

Post by tptacek »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #106
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utterly unfair comparison. The Apple and Microsoft business models are so unlike each other it's almost inaccurate to say they're in the same business. Apple can get product quality to the point they do because they laser focus on a few profitable segments. Microsoft's business model --- not "what Steve Ballmer thinks they should be doing this month" but their underlying business model --- involves them serving 80+%…

Did you watch Futurama last night? I have trouble believing that two detracting comments about Safeway ice cream were spontaneously made a day apart. "What do you say we go get some sewer coffee, sewer cake, and Safeway Ice Cream?" - Futurama

Nope. I hate the new Futurama episodes.

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

#130

Post by tptacek »

mahmud wrote: post #115
rottencupcakes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you watch Futurama last night? I have trouble believing that two detracting comments about Safeway ice cream were spontaneously made a day apart. "What do you say we go get some sewer coffee, sewer cake, and Safeway Ice Cream?" - Futurama

He is an avid Futurama fan. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1623530

Monkeys aren't donkeys! Stop messing with my head!
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