AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
1–10 of 101 posts
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#2The other one:
"DOS ain't done until Lotus won't run".
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#3Is AARD an acronym and what do the letters stand for?
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#4Is AARD an acronym and what do the letters stand for?
According to Wikipedia: " AARD code was originally discovered by Geoff Chappell on 17 April 1992 and then further analyzed and documented in a joint effort with Andrew Schulman.[2][3][4][5][6] The name was derived from Microsoft programmer Aaron R. Reynolds (1955–2008),[7] who used "AARD" to sign his work; "AARD" was found in the machine code of the installer"
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#5Is AARD an acronym and what do the letters stand for?
I had the same question. It's my biggest pet peeve when articles go on with cryptic acronyms (or, in this case, initialisms) and don't explain them.
The Wikipedia article for AARD code explains the source:
> The name was derived from Microsoft programmer Aaron R. Reynolds (1955–2008),[7] who used "AARD" to sign his work; "AARD" was found in the machine code of the installer.
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#6[flagged]
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#7[flagged]
The man is far from being silly. He's got enough time to educate himself on whatever he wants+ access to pretty much any expert in the field you can come come across. Does he know a lot on the subject? I have no idea, because I haven't listened him speaking about it at all. Can he gain enough knowledge in a field other than what made him rich? Sure he can.
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#8You might also find 'Embrace, extend, and extinguish' interesting.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#9The other one: "DOS ain't done until Lotus won't run". See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10432608
https://web.archive.org/web/20190908064425/http://www.proudl...
It was an old pre-Windows joke saying, maybe appealing because it didn't seem totally outside the realm of possibility, given other things people saw and heard from MS.
Later variations on the theme came with early Windows, when MS's own application programs were said to get special development support and also undocumented APIs they could use. Supposedly, this gave MS's programs time-to-market, stability, and performance advantages on MS's platform, to unseat previous dominant apps like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3.
Then there seemed to be a later phase of MS, when any kind of competition or partnership with them came with the explicit question of what your exit strategy was, when MS decided to either buy you or stab you in the back.
And lots of complaints from customers over the barrel.
That environment was great for adoption of Linux and for moving some kinds of things to the Web.
I think MS isn't currently one of our biggest problems.
Whether ruthless underhandedness is irrevocably in the DNA of the MS corporation, perhaps laying dormant until they reach a leverage threshold, or with much better public perception management for maneuverings now, I don't know. I certainly hope that they've mellowed out, and are just a typical large corporation.
Not to diss engineering people there. I don't suspect that engineering there was ever much in on any underhandedness in business dealings.
Re: AARD Code, or how Bill Gates finished off the competition
#10[flagged]
"Billy" has donated over $50 billion (that's with a "b") dollars to charity, a good chunk of that to health care both at home and abroad. If that isn't putting your money where your mouth is, I don't know what is.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/11/fac...