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Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

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Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#41

Post by crispyambulance »

adrianN wrote: post #6
geori wrote: post #2

MS Office (specifically Excel) is not a shitty product. There's a reason why it has a larger monopoly with finance types Wall Street than Google does with search. Power users can quickly build powerful financial models with it.

Doing complex modelling in Excel is not a good idea. There is no way to do proper software engineering, so bugs are common and hard to find. For examples, see http://www.eusprig.org/horror-stories.htm

So?

Many great projects start out as excel spreadsheets: someone has a problem, solves it with excel, then goes on to solve other problems with that spreadsheet. People use it and become dependent on it, but over time the thing becomes intractable.

At that point in time, the functionality of the spreadsheet gets implemented by actual developers into some "engineered application."

If you are suggesting to NOT start with excel, then propose another solution-- but good luck getting anyone to use it. The key thing is, no one wants to engage "software engineers $$$" to solve a problem that lands on their desk which they handle by themselves.

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#42

Post by zzalpha »

blcArmadillo wrote: post #36

Perhaps a litte off topic but does anyone here hate open table, if so can you share why? I've always found making a reservation a very plesant experience. To see all the availble times and make a reservation only takes a couple clicks.

The article is from the point of view of the restaurant, claiming the backend tooling sucks, which wouldn't surprise me. Optimizing the front end consumer experience while neglecting the back office is not uncommon.

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#43

Post by CPLX »

adrianN wrote: post #6
geori wrote: post #2

MS Office (specifically Excel) is not a shitty product. There's a reason why it has a larger monopoly with finance types Wall Street than Google does with search. Power users can quickly build powerful financial models with it.

Doing complex modelling in Excel is not a good idea. There is no way to do proper software engineering, so bugs are common and hard to find. For examples, see http://www.eusprig.org/horror-stories.htm

A complex model in Excel is software engineering.

The degree to which it is "proper" of course, is situational.

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#44

Post by someone7x »

geori wrote: post #2

MS Office (specifically Excel) is not a shitty product. There's a reason why it has a larger monopoly with finance types Wall Street than Google does with search. Power users can quickly build powerful financial models with it.

I've known a handful of people that have become full-time programmers after achieving proficiency in Excel. It's a product that many people enjoy using and mastering.

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#45

Post by Tyr42 »

WA wrote: post #35
Raphmedia wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start a blog! It's so easy those days. Most even have mobile apps so you can write blog posts on the go!

I'm actually about to do this. I have a bunch of first posts so far. But with a blog, the expectation is very similar: If I put in the effort to write (elaborate) blog posts, I expect some kind of return (views, maybe even comments). I don't want to put private thoughts in my blog. And not all thoughts are thought through. I want to use this blog as a recycling container for comments and ideas I post in communities.…

I dunno, I have a blog, but I have no stats and no comment box, and I'm pretty sure my most frequent reader is myself.

But it really does help to write down all the things, even if the only audience is future-you.

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#46

Post by _pmf_ »

FussyZeus wrote: post #9
colanderman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word certainly is, at least on OS X. Within an hour of my first time using it in a decade last week, I caused it to beachball for five minutes straight by clicking a single button (select all text of a given style). It then took me over an hour to figure out why my TOC entries had no spacing between their numbers and titles (hint: it wasn't the spacing setting), and another hour to figure out why, after I "fixed" the…

In defense of Word: The vast majority of people don't realize just how massive Word is in terms of it's feature set and it's complexity, Word is a fully furnished publishing program and most people treat it like a rich text editor. I still have and use it irregularly for a few things, but if you just need to edit text with formatting, use TextEdit. Using Word to type up a memo is like using a jet engine to cook a TV…

> Word is a fully furnished publishing program and most people treat it like a rich text editor.

"Oh, I need to change the format of headings? Well, I guess I'll have to go through all 1536 instances!"

-- someone with very good Office skills

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#47

Post by qihqi »

geori wrote: post #2

MS Office (specifically Excel) is not a shitty product. There's a reason why it has a larger monopoly with finance types Wall Street than Google does with search. Power users can quickly build powerful financial models with it.

The shittiest aspect of Office is the price.

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#48

Post by thedevil »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #37
thedevil wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a past life, I made (very expensive) spreadsheets for a living. And though I don't like most Microsoft products, I'm pretty sure that Excel was built by God himself (or at least He was the lead dev or the PM).

What makes you say that?

It was very well made. It's easy to use and yet but also has great features and shortcuts for power users. There's lots of genius little features not available elsewhere, like grouping columns or formulas over columns or rows (e.g. sum(A:A)). I often abused it with 50mb spreadsheets (a bad practice fyi) and it could often take it. The version I used rarely crashed.

For most software I use, I see lots of things that need improvement. With Excel, I can only think of a few. (If anyone from Microsoft is reading this, please add matchifs, it's desperately needed).

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#49

Post by Raphmedia »

WA wrote: post #35
Raphmedia wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start a blog! It's so easy those days. Most even have mobile apps so you can write blog posts on the go!

I'm actually about to do this. I have a bunch of first posts so far. But with a blog, the expectation is very similar: If I put in the effort to write (elaborate) blog posts, I expect some kind of return (views, maybe even comments). I don't want to put private thoughts in my blog. And not all thoughts are thought through. I want to use this blog as a recycling container for comments and ideas I post in communities.…

Some systems allow you to have user groups and to limit your posts to those groups.

Make a group "private thoughts" and only put yourself and your mom/wife/cats in it.

Re: Why Shitty Products Survive and Thrive

#50

Post by someguydave »

fumar wrote: post #34
geori wrote: post #2

MS Office (specifically Excel) is not a shitty product. There's a reason why it has a larger monopoly with finance types Wall Street than Google does with search. Power users can quickly build powerful financial models with it.

Microsoft Office (by the way 2016 is a pretty solid software suite) is not thriving because of institutional knowledge. Office is great because users in most business settings can quickly pick up any of its applications (learn how to use it) and apply the same learnings to the rest of the suite, personal knowledge with a small learning curve. Also, tools like Excel are malleable and useable for most users in a compan…

> Office is great because users in most business settings can quickly pick up any of its applications

My experience is that 'users in business settings' absolutely refuse to consider any alternatives, mainly because of two 'fear factors': 1.) "Everyone else in my industry uses Microsoft Office products so I must as well" 2.) (Usually unstated explicitly) "Learning an alternative is going to cost me time and money and personal effort"

Sure, Excel can be a useful spreadsheet tool, but Word is a clumsy and difficult publishing tool. Many alternatives from LaTeX to LibreOffice to InDesign tend to be more portable and reliable but require the user to assume a degree of risk for learning something new and different. That seems to be enough to keep the majority of users away.

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