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Scientists And Engineers Say "Computers Suck!"
drhpbaldy writes: "At the latest ACM meeting,
scientists and engineers threw mud at computer scientists for not contributing anything useful. They lambasted CS types for developing complex and useless technologies. Some of the fault was placed on VC's for funding only the fanciest and stupidest technologies." Of course, when people say that "design" will save the world, they usually mean their idea of design, which might not jibe with yours or mine.
I hate to burst your bubble.. but AGP has nothing to do with USB. The problem with Win95 rev 1 is that it simply doesn't support either one (or much more than minimal broken agp, IIRC).
AGP, PCI, USB, IEEE1394, ISA, EISA are all busses.
AGP is an design extension of the PCI bus which allows for convienient memory mapping (Allowing host memory to be used for video mem, pooling and locking), different clocking, and different DMA strategies. Think of it as an extended PCI specification.
PCI was a complete redisign of EISA, with particular interest in bus speed, and wider bus transfers. Best of all was autoconfiguration of IRQ, DMA, and port mapping. PCI operates at 66MHz.
USB = Universal Serial Bus. It is a chained 4 wire serial bus that has much more in common with ethernet than with AGP. It's basically a transmit/receive bus. IEEE1394 is very simular.
EISA and ISA are old standard busses which oftentimes required hardwired IRQ, DMA, and IO ports (because of it's inability to autoselect empty slots and lack of a decent bus controller. These were typically 8, 16 and (EISA)32 bit busses. And they were way slow, operating at 4 MHz or so.
So there you have it.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
I prefer a standalone DVD player to a PC. I prefer to use a Palm for storing addresses. PCs, even notebooks, don't carry around very well. I'd prefer to carry a mini MP3 player around than to carry a PC around. I prefer a PlayStation for many games over a PC.
I'd prefer it if my microwave had it's own embedded computer for timing, rather than having to hook a PC up to it in order to cook up my KD.
Judging by sales, I'd think the general public agrees with me, too.
Fact is, it's simpler to just hit a single button on a separate physical device than it is to hit a bunch of buttons on one. It seems that many programmers completely forget about ease-of-use on a physical level.
Of course, I'm just a grumpy old engineer, and an embedded one at that. I guess I'm the guy you're all rallying against right now...
I prefer a standalone DVD player to a PC. I prefer to use a Palm for storing addresses. PCs, even notebooks, don't carry around very well. I'd prefer to carry a mini MP3 player around than to carry a PC around. I prefer a PlayStation for many games over a PC.
:)
Ya, it would be great if there was a standalone word processing device that I could go to, to do my papers. And then, one right next to it that would do spreadsheets. And next to that, one that would check my email. And one more, with a nice big monitor, to browse the web! Seems kind of wasteful, we should just make all these functions on one device? Wouldn't it also be really cool if said device could play my mp3's, or play games, or play dvd's? Oh wait.......
I don't buy this multiple device idea. While it might be true that the devices you mentioned are doing well in sales, arent they a little more specific in purpose then the tasks I mentioned? The PC has lasted this long due to its general applicability to a slew of applications.
Also, which one of your devices (aside from the playstation) would be worth the plastic it was made out of without a PC it could dock/communicate/exchange-data with?
Of course, I'm just a naive young software-developer, and I'd be out of a job if not for the PC.
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python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
There are a lot of technologies out there that suck. Computers have many problems. But "have contributued nothing useful"? How many of these scientists and engineers would be where they're at without computers? Indeed, how many of them would have been able to schedule, arrive at, and execute their trip to this meeting?
I dont know why they would say such a stupid thing... I'll assume we all took what they said out of context/too seriously.
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python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
And makes it even more confusing for grandmothers trying to logon to an NT box.
"Control-Alt-Delete, but wont that stop it?"
Mark Duell
Of course, when people say that "design" will save the world, they usually mean their idea of design, which might not jibe with yours or mine.
No timothy, when they say "design", I beleive they are referring to things like usability testing. In other words, taking a software package to groups of users, and designing statistically sound experiments to see what users find easy and fast to use. In other words, users ideas of good design - not yours, not mine.
If you're interested, maybe read some sites on design.
Moreover, I think they are also saying that VC's should at least be aware of what theoreticians are thinking about so they make better use of their investor's dollars
The moment someone designs technology as an ends and not as a means, that technology is issued a death sentance. It might be commuted for 15 or 20 years, but it will eventually happen. The PC isn't dying, it's been slowly murdered for the last two decades by many companies (one in Redmond Washington comes to mind) who have made the PC so ridiculously difficult to use and maintain that people are being driven to use network appliances. For many years, makers of software and hardware have lost touch with the needs of their consumers. The latest buzzword compliant technology gets higher priority than what could actually help someone use their computer more efficiently and effectively. The perfect example (from soooo many to choose from) would be the 3.5 magneto optical disk. It was rewritable, damn reliable, as small as a floppy and, if it would have been produced in massive quantities, massively cheap. But that didn't meet with the agendas of the technology industry. They backed zip drives and superdisks that were far less reliable and held far less data. When it became absolutely critical to hold data sizes larger than 100+MB, they came up with another kludge: CD-RW--Technically ungraceful (has to rewrite the entire disk every time written to), has a file-system that requires special software (for windows and I think mac) to read, and still has trouble fitting in your pocket. Yet another missed opportunity for the tech industry.
One more example (this time in the present), firewire. Apple, one of the few companies to move computer technology ahead (despite all of its numerous business/PR flaws) has started putting internal firewire buses in their computers. Why didn't any other computer/motherboard companies think of this? Don't they understand that firewire cables are far less of a hassle than ribbon cables, and block airflow far less? Don't they reckognize the ease of use of being able to chain FW drives together? Don't they understand that external firewire is probably the easiest way for non-geeks to add new hardware (without the need to buy hubs)? But where is intel? Where is Western Digital? Where is Seagate, or Asus, or Abit, Tyan, or any of the others? Nowhere, that's where. In fact, they barely put any stock in USB. Rumor has it that when apple announced that it was killing serial and replacing it with USB, an Intel executive called Steve Jobs to thank him for taking the bold move "Getting all the others [OEMS] to go to USB was like herding cats".
To capitalize on the obvious pun, technology sucks because too many people are pussys
Programmers might not get the satisfaction of building something useful and might not experience the artistic delight of design, but we at least don't have to work as hard. And when it comes to the bottom line, that's all that counts.
What are you talking about? Programming (for me, anyway) is ALL about the satisfaction from building something useful and the artistic delight of design - in programming, you build something from quite literally nothing - you create order from chaos. Programming is speech, but it's much more than that - to be a good programmer, you have to think in abstract ways and be able to think truly dynamically - static thinkers have no places in the art of programming. Anyone who says they are programming for *just* money is NOT an artist. Good code is truly poetry, and good programmers are truly artists.
Industrial designers poked fun at virtually all facets of computers and other electronic gadgets, and the Apple iMac--displayed in PowerPoint presentations in its groovy new shades
Funny..computers appear to be useful enough to give PowerPoint presentations to a crowd to quickly and easily present information to a large group. I find it a bit hypocritical they'd bash computer design and ease of use and use PowerPoint instead of some other presentation medium.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
In explaining such issues to friends not familiar with the industry, I'll often draw parallels to similar situations. With this one, I'd say the computer craze is now at the point the car craze was in the late 1960's. Hobbyists are still common but on their way out. More and more people want the physical ideas of the technology eschewed for its practical purposes. Perhaps this economic turn is analogous to the oil crisis. (and quite similar. I've heard that at least some of is due to the californian legislator and power companies scratching each others back to create the energy crisis out here. Personally, it wouldn't surprise me, since I feel absolutely no trust toward the motives of either group)
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Seriously...I just have visions of what would happen if my appliances started communicating with each other...
Fridge: Ok everyone, we know Alex has a final tomorrow at 8am.
All Kitchen Appliances: *evil laughter*
Fridge: Everybody turn on in 3...2...1...NOW!
*All appliances in the house turn on at once*
*Circuit breaker trips*
(At 11am the next morning)
Alex: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
You know it'll happen. One day. When you least expect it. They'll turn on you.
the engineers have bought into the myth of the dying PC. Horsepucky. The PC is here with us forever, and as time goes on more and more things will be integrated into it.
Distributed systems are a nice thing in principle, but some problems can be broken up only so far. And then when it comes down to it, nobody wants to buy a specialized piece of a computer when they can get their generalized computer to work.
Look at the history of tools. First there were separate tools, each one doing a single or small number of jobs. Even a Swiss Army Knife was limited to about as many tasks as it had specialized attachments.
People like to poo poo the computer as being "just another tool". But the computer is far far different than any other tool that came before. The computer has the ability to be an INFINITE (or at least huge enough that you won't exhaust the possibilities in the lifetime of the universe) number of tools.
The engineers are being engineers. Who can blame them? They like single purpose tools. Heck, we like single purpose tools too, and that's why we generally embrace the UNIX philosophy of making a program do one thing, and do it well.
But the difference is that our specialization is in the software, and the specialization they are proposing is in the hardware. If I want a single purpose tool, I don't need a computer to get that.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Angry denial reiterated.
Supporting claim. Second supporting claim.
Revelation of inconsistencies in the complaints.
Setup for attempt at witty attack on academics.
Punchline of witty attack.
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It's too bad Microsoft couldn't build applications the same way, safe from Trojan Horses.
--Mike--
When engineers sneer at computer science, I just chuckle to myself. Because I know something they don't know: they're just jealous.
Engineers are jealous of programmers. It's that simple. Programmers have an easy life, after all. I only work a few hours a day, get paid big bucks, and for what? For telling a machine what to do. For the act of mere speech. It's Rapunzel's tale incarnate: I spin words into gold.
Engineers have too many constraints; the standards are too high. When the Tacoma Narrows bridge fell down, heads rolled. But when a bug in the latest version of NT disables an aircraft carrier, Microsoft doesn't get blamed at all. Bugs are par for the course in our industry, and we have no intention of changing it. It means higher profits from fixes and lower expectations. How are engineers supposed to compete with those sorts of odds?
I admit I considered going into engineering when I started my college days, but I was quickly disuaded. The courses were too involved, whereas the CS courses were a breeze for anyone who didn't fail calculus. And I don't regret it at all, really.
Programmers might not get the satisfaction of building something useful and might not experience the artistic delight of design, but we at least don't have to work as hard. And when it comes to the bottom line, that's all that counts.
That's because when someone comes up with a useful technology, even something as simple as LZW compression or an MP3 encoder, NO ONE ELSE CAN USE IT in their product. Writing products that use someone else's file format is called a "copyright violation". Standardising on one crypto algorithm is called patent theft. CPUs with compatible MMX instructions gets you sued by Intel. Making DVDs playable on "non-approved" systems gets you jailed, or orders from people halfway around the world.
So yeah, "CS types develop complex and useless technologies." because we have to carefully avoid reinventing someone else's wheel or we get sued into bankruptcy.
One result is millions of different wheels of different diameters, shapes and track widths that are all incompatible with one another. Sounds pretty messy, right? It also happens to resemble what we see today in the computing industry.
The other result is people getting fed up with all the incompatibilities and looking for a standard, any standard. And since the standard is proprietary, naturally this will favor the growth of monopolies, e.g., Microsoft, who thes uses their position as OS "standard" to create other standards, such as Excel and Word formats, whilst actively blocking anyone else from participating in that standard.
IMO both patent lifetime and copyright lifetime ought to be cut to 10 years tops for all things computing related, hardware or software, because stuff in this field ages faster than any other traditionally patented and coyrighted work.
And there needs to be an irrevocable expiration for abandoned patents and copyrights too. It's absolutely insane that Atari 2600 games are still locked away by copyright, while no one is prodcing them. And they'll be locked away for over a century under current IP law. Is this right?
If it wasn't for us software guys, you scientific types would still be writing programs in Fortran.
Oh that's right, you ARE still writing in Fortran. My bad.
Anybody remember the original Apple II?
.. typically these were pieces of firm foam rubber that you would place underneath the RESET key (you had to pry up the keycap) .. resulting in a key that was still "pressable", albeit with a bit more effort.
//c, and IIgs), Apple listened to their users' complaints, learned from their mistake, and required a Ctrl-RESET combination in order to actually trigger the reset. That hard-learned lesson carried over to other hardware and software manufacturers, including the choice of Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
The RESET key, located at the top-left corner of the keyboard, triggered a software reset. This had the effect of (depending on the software you were using) terminating the program and dumping you back to a BASIC prompt or erasing whatever unsaved data you had or doing a hard reboot of the machine. Users quickly found out (the hard way) that this button was way too easy to press by accident. In fact, this problem was so pervasive that magazines such as Creative Computing began advertising for "RESET key protectors"
In later versions of the Apple II/II+ (and in subsequent machines such as the IIe,
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Targets of the critics' scorn included convoluted commands such as the common "ALT-CONTROL-DELETE" sequence used to close a program or perform an emergency shutdown.
Put it under F1, see if that makes them happy. You know, there's a reason it's such a 'convoluted' command, It keeps people from accidently executing it!.
I thought my sarcasm was pretty good, thank you very much.
Perhaps my bile was uncalled for, but I'm sick of people implying "good design is easy, why doesn't someone just do it?"
Good design and usability are difficult. Do you think that the industry doesn't know that billions of dollars and instant fame and fortune are at stake here? Do you think that the industry doesn't try really, really hard to get that money?
There's a right way to criticize usablity--one author who does it right is Donald Norman (I'm sure there are others, but on this topic I've only read Mr. Norman's books). He manages to carefully consider what is wrong with a designs, discusses the alternatives, and points out how usablity could be improved.
There's also a wrong way. Say something "Why can't my computer be as easy to use as a toilet?" God, I'm getting pissed off again. What's the feature list of that toilet? And what's the feature list of your computer; can you even hope to cover that list in any amount of detail? In fact, does your computer actually even have a standing feature list, or do you actively install new software (and thus new features) constantly? Dammit, everybody who uses a computer has complex needs--I have a web browser, an email client, a remote telnet session, an mp3 player, and a "find file" all open RIGHT now, and I suspect that I'm pretty tame compared to the average slashdot reader. I'm going to play an online game with friends in another state shortly. I could spend hours describing what I want EACH ONE of these to do. I happen to think that all facts considered, the usability is pretty good. (And I might add: Damn, it's cool to live in the year 2001. This stuff rocks.)
Are things perfect? Of course not. One company has a monopoly on the desktop market and has very little incentive to innovate (in spite of their claims the contrary) and every incentive to continue to keep the status quo. Yes, the "START" button is retarded. Should we strive to improve the state-of-the art? Of course. Would it be awesome if it was easier to do my taxes? Sure, but are you absolutely you want the automated solution you described when it sacrifices transparency (are you sure your taxes were done correctly in that system) and possibly privacy (who's keeping track of all that information flowing between your income-payers and the government?) I actually think that TurboTax made my taxes about as easy as I'd like--it asked me a simple set of questions, I answered, and it was done. Any easier, and I'm not sure I'd completely trust it.
I actually don't know why you're arguing, since in at least one respect, you agreed with me. You said:
Simplicity of interface, sheer useability, takes a lot of talent, skill and creativity.
If you think about it, the article in question basically said these are all trivial, require little skill or talent, and they said it with a condescending attitude. It's actually really really hard. Dismissing the problem is unwarranted and deserves and equally scathing reply.
Dammit, I hate these fuckers.
First of all, they contradict themselves. "Computers are too hard," they whine, but when a computer interface remains consistent and usable for twenty years, "If Rip Van Wrinkle went to sleep in 1982 and woke up today, he'd be able to drive our modern computers with no problem because they're essentially unchanged".
Second, they recommend creating "simpler" and "distributed" devices instead of monolithic boxes that do everything. What the hell does this mean, what devices really need more intelligence? All I can think of is one of those computerized thermostats. Whoopee.
Look. Computers are complex because your needs are complex. Worse yet, my complex needs are inconsistent the needs of others. Try to download mp3s on your toaster. Try to do your taxes while downloading porn while instant messaging your friend in France while checking the weather on one of their great appliances. Try to use that "more intelligent than a computer" airport toilet to write up your Powerpoint slides, you pompus pricks.
Actually, in this case, that might have actually worked.
I just love it when Scientists fling mud and proclaim that the 'real-world' isn't science.
In mathematics, we have the very 'real' Taguchi quality control that revolutionized manufacturing processes, but according to my Math professors, "It's not real mathematics, just some linear algebra application."
On the topic of manufacturing, Metal can now be formed and machined into virtually any shape, Ceramics and metals can be mixed and then burned to form Aluminum tools (molds) for injection molding parts. "That's just an trick to sintering the ceramic" my ceramics professor told me.
My point is that industry types, whether they are applying nueral networks to read handwriting or creating thinner flat panel displays, solve the same complicated types of problems that the more 'scientific' community solves. The scientific community discredits their work because "Theoretically it can be done, so why bother doing it." It's as though the companies that want to enhance their products by funding research shouldn't fund the research that is most likely to enhance their products!
I'm sorry to sound harsh because this strikes close to home for me. I was on track for PhD, but quit and now I'm having a lot more fun developing optimized neural networks to do hand writing recognition.
Keeping
I love my computer enough as it is. If I had a computer that sucked, I'd never leave the house!
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.