I have worked in software companies for 8 years, and I can tell you bar none, that 90% of quality problems are caused by a marketing-driven schedule and feature set.
Yes, it's unavoidable that sofware has to sell to finance it's own development, and selling on a schedule is a requirement of marketing.You line up magazine reviews and trade shows months in advance, if the software doesn't ship on time, you miss this window, you end up losing a huge potential in sales - because of lack of hype. I've seen damn good products die on the vine due to missing the window; and I've also seen instances where the sales force of a large software company will only sell the best selling (largest bonus, easiest to sell) product, and ignore the rest, causing other products the company sells or introduces to die, all because nobody will stand up to the sales director and tell him to tell his people to get their asses in gear.
Other factors have been the easy ability for software companies to ship with massive defects to match a schedule, and put a patch on the web for downloads later - this was not nearly as common back when customers had to dial into a BBS for a patch (before widespread use of the web).
Basically, it's more of a competitive advantage to get a market presence (we're talking vapor here), than it is to ship a good stable product.
Who to blame?
The trade press. Whether the reviews are accurate or not, they still sell their rags. My company has a whole department of people whose job it is to "manage trade press relationships", that is, to make sure they get a favorable review. If we had a serious bug during an evaluation, our people fly out there and pucker up to the journalists, and no mention is made of the bug in the review.
This is life, in the software industry folks. It's only gotten worse. And it will only get still worse.
There is only one law. The law of the jungle. All of the other laws are based on this, and are merely illusory.
In fact, you illustrated my point. Did the people drive 65 as posted? No, they drove 75. You put up walls, and people; human beings, will peek over the top. It is human nature.
Maybe the law should be - no police are allowed to play violent video games; and no person who ever played a violent video game should be eligible to be a police officer, or server in any military capacity.
The effect on civillians is obviously not hazardous. The effect on the storm troopers, however, is.
change how people behave? Are you nuts? Have speed limits changed how people drive? For the most part, no. Not until they pull every speeder over, every time, and pull their license - and incarcerate for driving on suspended licenses, will behavioral changes occur.
You can't compell people. You can bully them, you can cajole them, but you can't compell them.
I agree, the menu focus feature in Office 2000 really, really sucks, to use on a daily basis.
It makes an infrequently used, but annoying task about 10 times more annoying when you can't quickly scan through the menus to figure out which one it's in.
If they're going to do this, then they should have some kind of menu refresh button or something - or at least an easy way to turn it off.
I hate to say that a multitude of features, commonly used or not, is empirically bad, but in a lot of cases, they're just organized poorly for the new user, or the power user who just wants quick and dirty basic functionality. So having way too many features kills the usability of the product for what I'd say are the majority of the users - attempting to hide features based on frequency of use, is similarly a bad idea, for the reasons I've cited above. Giving the power user the ability to configure the UI is a good thing for that power user, but terrible for a normal or inexperienced user - and especially for Tech Support (there should be an easily accessible "restore defaults" button for these situations, and the change must be reversible).
No, John Muir doesn't cover *everything*, but all of the basics, and that book was an essential first step to getting this newbie under the valve covers.
But later, I've found that Muir was very opinionated about some things, and just plain wrong about some things (valve clearance, for instance, ought to be.004, as VW originally intended, not.006 - just make sure they're adjusted more often). He doesn't tell you how to adjust or fix your automatic choke, because he hates them. He tells you how to disable it. He hates vacuum advance distributors, but neglects to mention that mechanical advance distributors really don't belong on a stock 1600cc engine that isn't otherwise hotrodded; most offer too much advance, unless you're lucky enough to find an 010 or 019, and know how to remove one of the springs.
I've found that there are many, many other good books, including the Big Blue Bently, which though it covers through 1962, there's a lot of critical info in that book that is missed in the later shop manuals.
Best of all, I've learned so much about working on these engines, that I'm thinking of cashing in some stock options, and buying a vintage Porsche 356, very similar suspension and engine design. In fact, made in the very same factory as some of the beetles, (and Karmann Ghias), and originally designed by the same man.
Sorry, but I don't believe that one could seriously consider Sailor Moon to be adult entertainment. Yes, there are some small portions that portray adult themes, but overall, let's be serious; it appeals to my 4 year old daughter.
I'm not saying that's true about all anime, or even most anime - but you must admit, Sailor Moon is about as silly as silly gets, my daughter enjoys it immensely. I'm not talking about editing the gory scenes out of Akira. (which *would* piss me off, and I don't think my kids will be watching that particular movie until at least age 13)
And no, I wasn't going to take her to see Bruce Willis' "The Kid" either. . .;-)
Pac Bell just sent me my letter telling me that I'm not eligible for DSL service (prolly too far from the CO, as I suspected). The bandwidth aint there for movies. It just aint. 56k is barely enough to just surf - I don't even like wasting my time waiting for pr0n downloads.
And cable? I'd rather give Bill Gates a rim job than go back to giving Charter Communications my hard-earned dollars.
Vintage air cooled VW, new cylinder head: about $200. Far cry from $3000.
AND - if you get one from 1973 or earlier, you're exempt from EPA smog testing.
I bought one, and I gradually shifted over from taking it to shops for work, and working on it myself. As I did, I encountered many instances of where the shop billed me for work that was just plain not done, or done incorrectly, and in one case, possibly sabotaged (rocker-arm was shimmed with lock washers).
The advantages to having a VERY simple engine design that you can work on yourself - you can trust your repair job, because you care, the fscking mechanic at the shop doesn't. You never have to trust these fsckers again. You trust yourself. Plus, these cars, though old, are very reliable, spare parts are VERY easy to find, and cheap, and people have been hotrodding them for 30 years, so there's a lot of cheap, easy, and good mods for that little 1600cc engine.
Diesel is ultra-nasty for pollutants. High particulate content, lots of soot - known to cause cancer, thought to be responsible for the high-rate of urban asthma and anaphlactic allergy sufferers (the diesel particles have been seen to cause sensitivity to other allergens to which a person wasn't previously or otherwise allergic to).
Tho diesel is a good argument for the legalization of hemp (hemp seed oil can be converted quite cheaply and easily to diesel fuel).
What I've started to notice is that a lot of people are getting these SUV's lowered. That is, they pay $$$$$ to buy the big overpriced peice of crap that they never intend to take off road, then they pay $$$$$ to dink the suspension so that they don't need a ladder to climb up into it, so now it looks like a cross between a minivan and an 18 wheeler.
I see lots of these at the supermarket, mid-40's housewives loading up the back with groceries. Lordy, what ever happened to station wagons?
ha. I had an 86 Camaro, with the 2.8 liter V6, and I too dreamed of swapping for a 350.
Until I spent $5000 on brakes, exhaust system, cooling system, fuel-injection system, steering rack, suspension, etc. ad nauseum.
In my opinion, GM just makes shit for cars anymore. I unloaded that worthless peice of crap back in 1992 - on another poor sucker who thought it would be cool if he could swap engines. What a load of bull. Wannabe car.
Or, if you aren't in the "above $200k/yr" salary range, you might try the Volvo wagon. The turbo is enormously fun, and the safety record is; well, it's a Volvo, isn't it. Plus, you can have fun with the name, because it sounds a lot like "Vulva". Subtle changes in pronunciation bring on the strangest looks from others. . .
uh, my 4 year old daughter loves Sailor Moon, and I'd rather not have to discuss that uncomfortable subject with her until she's like 13. I know that the reality is, it will come up much sooner, but 4? Gimme a break. I agree, censorship is a pain in the ass, and I think that there should be a place where adults can watch uncensored media - but there also needs to be a place where our kids can watch stuff that is both entertaining and "safe". Basically, I'm saying - don't protect my children, but give me an option to do so if I want.
Technically, this probably isn't feasible - separate channels would have to be devoted currently. But the VOD of tomorrow should easily make this a reality. There's already capability on DVD to select censored and uncensored versions of movies for viewing.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Re:Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards....
on
Microsoft PDC Journal
·
· Score: 1
Don't forget that once they shoehorn software-rental into the market, and get us all good and dependent on it (by "us", I mean the consumer), they'll move to Pay Per Use, or Pay Per Tick, and of course, they'll have obnoxious bundling deals like the fscking cable companies; you can rent Word, but that's bundled with FrontPage, IE, Minesweeper, Wallet, Money, and SQL Server.
Yes, but you know and I know that the information Sega's developers get from Microsoft regarding implementing DirectX will be shy of certain technical details that will make it difficult to impossible for Sega's hardware to match XBox in speed and stability. XBox will get the latest DirectX support updates as soon as possible. Dreamcast, whenever MS gets around to it. Embracing cross-platform on Microsoft begins with what looks like a good-faith effort, then slowly erodes in quality until you have something that looks and runs like IE on Solaris, or Microsoft Office for Macintosh 4.2.
The exceptions to this model, of course, are office98 for Mac, actually pretty decent, and IE 5.5 for Mac, very standards-compliant - but once the Windows version of IE 5.5 gets out there, and developers start developing for Windows' IE 5.5's particular implementation of CSS, etc., the Macintosh version of IE 5.5 will support a subset of sites, and again, the Mac users are marginalized, and begin to suspect that they might have a better web experience if they were using a Windows machine.
This is usually news to any person who has ever believed anything written in a factsheet on Microsoft's website.
That's how they'll get their foot in the door. Gaming. But with multiple functionality, Microsoft could easily eat a small proportion of the desktop market. The folks for whom computers are just too expensive, or complicated - they need SOME computer functionality (primarily gaming, yes, the web, ecommerce, email, obviously, financial planning services, word processing, multimedia/streaming video/audio), but they don't need the functionality, complexity, and expense of a CAD workstation, or C++ development workstation. Those people, who may currently have a PC, and know it's too much for their needs, and those people who just want a gaming console and find XBox more compelling with the extra features than dreamcast or ps/2, they're going to buy XBox.
This casual home market is a big market, and the game-console/DVD player/webTV browser is one hell of a gateway. Give them some limited PC functionality, and this thing will be on fire. Then give the developers a compelling development market like DirectX which gives them a very easy way to port between this huge console market, and desktop PCs, and the developers will forget OpenGL, ps/2, Macintosh, or anything else ever existed.
The XBox is simply another front on the "API wars".
If XBox is successful, Microsoft has another extremely powerful tool to further wedge DirectX into the minds of developers. Instead of OpenGL.
Microsoft's goal, in this, is to get developers writing primarily for the most popular platform - theirs: DirectX on Windows9x/NT/CE/XBox. Ports to other platforms, Unices, MacOS classic/x, ps/2, dreamcast, amiga, os/2 (I included the last two to illustrate what's going to happen to all the others) will be done later, if at all, there will be no parallel development if the gaming company has to get it to market fast and cheap, which is a necessity in this competitive world. Porting a DirectX game to OpenGL later will be a financial liability if you're talking about 30% or less of the combined market. The end result, less games on the minority platforms, less sales for minority platforms, market dominance, once again - didn't we learn this lesson in the 80's?
Why is the game-console important? Because, in the future, game-consoles will pick up other functions, they will get the non-PC market onto the internet - they will be the control-valve for all media - they will morph into settop boxes.
Maybe Carmack wants to get onto the advisory board to try to strongarm Microsoft into supporting OpenGL on XBox. At least that's what I'd like to believe. I'd like to believe that Carmack is still dedicated to cross-platform development, open standards, and a world where there's choice other than MS.
Obviously, by how Bungie got bought, Microsoft has some pretty compelling material supporting why developers should consider XBox. I hope that Carmack didn't bite that fishhook too.
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You have discovered the secret, grasshopper.
.You line up magazine reviews and trade shows months in advance, if the software doesn't ship on time, you miss this window, you end up losing a huge potential in sales - because of lack of hype. I've seen damn good products die on the vine due to missing the window; and I've also seen instances where the sales force of a large software company will only sell the best selling (largest bonus, easiest to sell) product, and ignore the rest, causing other products the company sells or introduces to die, all because nobody will stand up to the sales director and tell him to tell his people to get their asses in gear.
I have worked in software companies for 8 years, and I can tell you bar none, that 90% of quality problems are caused by a marketing-driven schedule and feature set.
Yes, it's unavoidable that sofware has to sell to finance it's own development, and selling on a schedule is a requirement of marketing
Other factors have been the easy ability for software companies to ship with massive defects to match a schedule, and put a patch on the web for downloads later - this was not nearly as common back when customers had to dial into a BBS for a patch (before widespread use of the web).
Basically, it's more of a competitive advantage to get a market presence (we're talking vapor here), than it is to ship a good stable product.
Who to blame?
The trade press. Whether the reviews are accurate or not, they still sell their rags. My company has a whole department of people whose job it is to "manage trade press relationships", that is, to make sure they get a favorable review. If we had a serious bug during an evaluation, our people fly out there and pucker up to the journalists, and no mention is made of the bug in the review.
This is life, in the software industry folks. It's only gotten worse.
And it will only get still worse.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
There is only one law. The law of the jungle. All of the other laws are based on this, and are merely illusory.
In fact, you illustrated my point. Did the people drive 65 as posted? No, they drove 75. You put up walls, and people; human beings, will peek over the top. It is human nature.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Maybe the law should be - no police are allowed to play violent video games; and no person who ever played a violent video game should be eligible to be a police officer, or server in any military capacity.
The effect on civillians is obviously not hazardous. The effect on the storm troopers, however, is.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Try Japanese entertainment then.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
change how people behave? Are you nuts? Have speed limits changed how people drive? For the most part, no. Not until they pull every speeder over, every time, and pull their license - and incarcerate for driving on suspended licenses, will behavioral changes occur.
You can't compell people. You can bully them, you can cajole them, but you can't compell them.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
would you be happy if the guy at the bar carded you?
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
I agree, the menu focus feature in Office 2000 really, really sucks, to use on a daily basis.
It makes an infrequently used, but annoying task about 10 times more annoying when you can't quickly scan through the menus to figure out which one it's in.
If they're going to do this, then they should have some kind of menu refresh button or something - or at least an easy way to turn it off.
I hate to say that a multitude of features, commonly used or not, is empirically bad, but in a lot of cases, they're just organized poorly for the new user, or the power user who just wants quick and dirty basic functionality. So having way too many features kills the usability of the product for what I'd say are the majority of the users - attempting to hide features based on frequency of use, is similarly a bad idea, for the reasons I've cited above. Giving the power user the ability to configure the UI is a good thing for that power user, but terrible for a normal or inexperienced user - and especially for Tech Support (there should be an easily accessible "restore defaults" button for these situations, and the change must be reversible).
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
No, Weird Al did not grow up near Emo. Emo grew up in Downer's Grove, IL (I love to shop in downtown Downer's Grove. . .), and Weird Al did not.
I know, because I grew up in a neighboring town. I knew some other kids who hung out with him, before he was famous. He was totally not normal.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
And he played Ellen Degeneres' boss, if that isn't wierd and supernatural, I don't know what is!
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
No, John Muir doesn't cover *everything*, but all of the basics, and that book was an essential first step to getting this newbie under the valve covers.
.004, as VW originally intended, not .006 - just make sure they're adjusted more often). He doesn't tell you how to adjust or fix your automatic choke, because he hates them. He tells you how to disable it. He hates vacuum advance distributors, but neglects to mention that mechanical advance distributors really don't belong on a stock 1600cc engine that isn't otherwise hotrodded; most offer too much advance, unless you're lucky enough to find an 010 or 019, and know how to remove one of the springs.
But later, I've found that Muir was very opinionated about some things, and just plain wrong about some things (valve clearance, for instance, ought to be
I've found that there are many, many other good books, including the Big Blue Bently, which though it covers through 1962, there's a lot of critical info in that book that is missed in the later shop manuals.
Best of all, I've learned so much about working on these engines, that I'm thinking of cashing in some stock options, and buying a vintage Porsche 356, very similar suspension and engine design. In fact, made in the very same factory as some of the beetles, (and Karmann Ghias), and originally designed by the same man.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Sorry, but I don't believe that one could seriously consider Sailor Moon to be adult entertainment. Yes, there are some small portions that portray adult themes, but overall, let's be serious; it appeals to my 4 year old daughter.
;-)
I'm not saying that's true about all anime, or even most anime - but you must admit, Sailor Moon is about as silly as silly gets, my daughter enjoys it immensely. I'm not talking about editing the gory scenes out of Akira. (which *would* piss me off, and I don't think my kids will be watching that particular movie until at least age 13)
And no, I wasn't going to take her to see Bruce Willis' "The Kid" either. . .
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Agreed.
Pac Bell just sent me my letter telling me that I'm not eligible for DSL service (prolly too far from the CO, as I suspected). The bandwidth aint there for movies. It just aint. 56k is barely enough to just surf - I don't even like wasting my time waiting for pr0n downloads.
And cable? I'd rather give Bill Gates a rim job than go back to giving Charter Communications my hard-earned dollars.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
buddy of mine's GF got tapped in her Saturn at about 5 mph, the whole passenger-side fender shattered. It was 20 below zero out.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Vintage air cooled VW, new cylinder head: about $200. Far cry from $3000.
AND - if you get one from 1973 or earlier, you're exempt from EPA smog testing.
I bought one, and I gradually shifted over from taking it to shops for work, and working on it myself. As I did, I encountered many instances of where the shop billed me for work that was just plain not done, or done incorrectly, and in one case, possibly sabotaged (rocker-arm was shimmed with lock washers).
The advantages to having a VERY simple engine design that you can work on yourself - you can trust your repair job, because you care, the fscking mechanic at the shop doesn't. You never have to trust these fsckers again. You trust yourself. Plus, these cars, though old, are very reliable, spare parts are VERY easy to find, and cheap, and people have been hotrodding them for 30 years, so there's a lot of cheap, easy, and good mods for that little 1600cc engine.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Diesel is ultra-nasty for pollutants. High particulate content, lots of soot - known to cause cancer, thought to be responsible for the high-rate of urban asthma and anaphlactic allergy sufferers (the diesel particles have been seen to cause sensitivity to other allergens to which a person wasn't previously or otherwise allergic to).
Tho diesel is a good argument for the legalization of hemp (hemp seed oil can be converted quite cheaply and easily to diesel fuel).
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
What I've started to notice is that a lot of people are getting these SUV's lowered. That is, they pay $$$$$ to buy the big overpriced peice of crap that they never intend to take off road, then they pay $$$$$ to dink the suspension so that they don't need a ladder to climb up into it, so now it looks like a cross between a minivan and an 18 wheeler.
I see lots of these at the supermarket, mid-40's housewives loading up the back with groceries. Lordy, what ever happened to station wagons?
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
ha. I had an 86 Camaro, with the 2.8 liter V6, and I too dreamed of swapping for a 350.
Until I spent $5000 on brakes, exhaust system, cooling system, fuel-injection system, steering rack, suspension, etc. ad nauseum.
In my opinion, GM just makes shit for cars anymore. I unloaded that worthless peice of crap back in 1992 - on another poor sucker who thought it would be cool if he could swap engines. What a load of bull. Wannabe car.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Or, if you aren't in the "above $200k/yr" salary range, you might try the Volvo wagon. The turbo is enormously fun, and the safety record is; well, it's a Volvo, isn't it. Plus, you can have fun with the name, because it sounds a lot like "Vulva". Subtle changes in pronunciation bring on the strangest looks from others. . .
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
uh, my 4 year old daughter loves Sailor Moon, and I'd rather not have to discuss that uncomfortable subject with her until she's like 13. I know that the reality is, it will come up much sooner, but 4? Gimme a break. I agree, censorship is a pain in the ass, and I think that there should be a place where adults can watch uncensored media - but there also needs to be a place where our kids can watch stuff that is both entertaining and "safe". Basically, I'm saying - don't protect my children, but give me an option to do so if I want.
Technically, this probably isn't feasible - separate channels would have to be devoted currently. But the VOD of tomorrow should easily make this a reality. There's already capability on DVD to select censored and uncensored versions of movies for viewing.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Don't forget that once they shoehorn software-rental into the market, and get us all good and dependent on it (by "us", I mean the consumer), they'll move to Pay Per Use, or Pay Per Tick, and of course, they'll have obnoxious bundling deals like the fscking cable companies; you can rent Word, but that's bundled with FrontPage, IE, Minesweeper, Wallet, Money, and SQL Server.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
If everyone used Macs, we'd be totally screwed. AppleScript can do lots of nasty stuff.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Yes, but you know and I know that the information Sega's developers get from Microsoft regarding implementing DirectX will be shy of certain technical details that will make it difficult to impossible for Sega's hardware to match XBox in speed and stability. XBox will get the latest DirectX support updates as soon as possible. Dreamcast, whenever MS gets around to it. Embracing cross-platform on Microsoft begins with what looks like a good-faith effort, then slowly erodes in quality until you have something that looks and runs like IE on Solaris, or Microsoft Office for Macintosh 4.2.
The exceptions to this model, of course, are office98 for Mac, actually pretty decent, and IE 5.5 for Mac, very standards-compliant - but once the Windows version of IE 5.5 gets out there, and developers start developing for Windows' IE 5.5's particular implementation of CSS, etc., the Macintosh version of IE 5.5 will support a subset of sites, and again, the Mac users are marginalized, and begin to suspect that they might have a better web experience if they were using a Windows machine.
This is usually news to any person who has ever believed anything written in a factsheet on Microsoft's website.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
www.spaceweather.com
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
no.
That's how they'll get their foot in the door. Gaming.
But with multiple functionality, Microsoft could easily eat a small proportion of the desktop market. The folks for whom computers are just too expensive, or complicated - they need SOME computer functionality (primarily gaming, yes, the web, ecommerce, email, obviously, financial planning services, word processing, multimedia/streaming video/audio), but they don't need the functionality, complexity, and expense of a CAD workstation, or C++ development workstation. Those people, who may currently have a PC, and know it's too much for their needs, and those people who just want a gaming console and find XBox more compelling with the extra features than dreamcast or ps/2, they're going to buy XBox.
This casual home market is a big market, and the game-console/DVD player/webTV browser is one hell of a gateway. Give them some limited PC functionality, and this thing will be on fire. Then give the developers a compelling development market like DirectX which gives them a very easy way to port between this huge console market, and desktop PCs, and the developers will forget OpenGL, ps/2, Macintosh, or anything else ever existed.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
The XBox is simply another front on the "API wars".
If XBox is successful, Microsoft has another extremely powerful tool to further wedge DirectX into the minds of developers. Instead of OpenGL.
Microsoft's goal, in this, is to get developers writing primarily for the most popular platform - theirs: DirectX on Windows9x/NT/CE/XBox. Ports to other platforms, Unices, MacOS classic/x, ps/2, dreamcast, amiga, os/2 (I included the last two to illustrate what's going to happen to all the others) will be done later, if at all, there will be no parallel development if the gaming company has to get it to market fast and cheap, which is a necessity in this competitive world. Porting a DirectX game to OpenGL later will be a financial liability if you're talking about 30% or less of the combined market. The end result, less games on the minority platforms, less sales for minority platforms, market dominance, once again - didn't we learn this lesson in the 80's?
Why is the game-console important? Because, in the future, game-consoles will pick up other functions, they will get the non-PC market onto the internet - they will be the control-valve for all media - they will morph into settop boxes.
Maybe Carmack wants to get onto the advisory board to try to strongarm Microsoft into supporting OpenGL on XBox. At least that's what I'd like to believe. I'd like to believe that Carmack is still dedicated to cross-platform development, open standards, and a world where there's choice other than MS.
Obviously, by how Bungie got bought, Microsoft has some pretty compelling material supporting why developers should consider XBox. I hope that Carmack didn't bite that fishhook too.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!