"The problem of course is I'm saying how the companies should handle them, and I have no authority at any of these places, save people actually valuing my ideas. Personally, I've done some development in the past, and there was the concept of defects. Your bonus would depend on how many defects were in your application at delivery time. These were feature-based defects, but shouldn't vulnerabilities be considered defects as well?"
So, the author freely admits he is neither a developer or a manager. If he was a developer he'd know that these are defects and everyone treats them as such.
If he was a manager, he'd know that one of the surest ways to wreck a good shop is to start doing comp based on defects. Here is what invariably (in my experience) happens when a shop includes defect counts in there comp plans.
1. Relationships between Dev, QA, Product Management and Operations get worse because the terms 'defect' and 'bug' become toxic. In reality these things always exist in software. The last thing you want to do is create barriers to dealing with them. Making the acknowledgment of a defect cost someone money means you will have arguments over every one of them unless they cause an out right crash.
2. Culture becomes overly risk-averse - No one wants to take on difficult problems or blaze new territory. The smartest people will naturally pick the easiest work to minimize the risk of defects.
3. Over-dependence on consultants - More CYA behavior. If it's too complex people will outsource to keep the defects away. This is a very bad thing if the nasty problems are because of business and not technical challenges. Now the people who know enough about the problem domain to understand the risk are hiring proxies who know nothing to avoid responsibility for 'defects'.
The problem with asbestos fibers is that they are long, thin, and straight. Lymphocyte's can't deal with them because they can't wrap around them. The carbon nanotubes that are dangerous are the ones that are shaped the same way.
From the photo in the article, they look safe. There are plenty of rough edges for white cells to grapple.
Given HP's current market position, I don't think you can say the merger was anything other than very successful over the long haul. Mark Hurd has done a hell of a job.
"Not only were they in a position to dominate before Windows 95, they were already dominating."
That's the point where I disagree. They were not. In 1990, MSFT stock was (adjusted for splits) ~$0.65 a share. In 1995, it was ~$3.60 a share (a very respectable increase). In 2000, it was $58.00 a share. They dominated from 1995 through 2000, they were NOT dominate yet in 2000. Windows 95 helped them become dominate, it wasn't a forgone conclusion base on an already ascendant Microsoft.
The anti-trust situation did not come about was not until three-four years latter. In 1995, Lotus was still number 1 in productivity apps, Borland and Sybase made the most popular development tools, IBM had the best positioning in big companies, and Novell was king of the PC network.
Microsoft was a contender in all of these areas and they one. But saying they were in position to dominate the OEMs in 19945-1996 is just untrue. Windows 95 IS what put them into position to abuse the market, but it got them there because it and Office were much better than OS/2 and Lotus.
Comparing SGI and NeXTSTEP to Windows - the price point was multiples higher and it's apples to oranges.
Windows and OS/2 3.0 is a fair comparison. There was no real difference in the hardware req's, but one of them required users to edit text files on a setup disk to install from a CD and the other didn't. Guess which one won?
"Microsoft 'won' because they ran on cheaper hardware. In no way was their software superior."
Is nonsense where Warp is concerned, it was first to market, was simillar in price, and ran the same software. Windows beat it because it was easier to set up, easier to use, and had better marketing. IBM lost fair and square.
It'll be either one of the console vendors Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony (Probably Microsoft if they can get their heads out their asses on the matter of DRM. The XBox 360/Windows Media stuff works pretty well already and is simple to set up) or a set-top box vendor (again if they can come up with a DRM strategy).
Apple doesn't make anything that hooks to a TV that has any critical mass.
I agree! "These people" really are a problem because they just don't understand things as well as you do.
I believe that when you say they are in the same category as the are disabled, what you really mean is that they are inferior to you and not worth consideration as full-fledged human beings.
It's a shame that they can't use their intellect to understand their place in this complex system of a world we live in.
Maybe I'm reading too much into what you wrote and if so I appologize, but I suspect you are one scarey dude with a serious God complex.
Call me when you see them deploying new sites that use Flash instead of SilverLight. The fact that they haven't gone back and redone older properties is not surprising; who would?
Hell, they have old SDK documentation (Cabinet SDK) still live that is in RTF format.
If it weren't for the automation provided by IBM to the Third Reich, the Nazis would not have been able to keep tabs on and slaughter so many people. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
'Do no evil.' isn't a motto IBM has, or ever will, adopt.
I think that mandating the inclusion of one single specific competitor in the box and requiring that consumers have to run the installers themselves as TFA suggest crosses some invisible line and is clearly "taking sides". Of course TFA could have suggested that every alternative OS be available. This would only be slightly less appalling than what he actually wrote.
It seems to me that this is a bad idea for two reasons. The first is that it would require vendors to ensure compatibility at all levels of two different configurations and have two sets of support. Support and warranties aren't free and the cost would be passed on to the consumer either directly as vendors recover the costs or indirectly to to crappy kit if the vendors fail to properly spend the money in the first place. Secondly, it assumes that Linux has a god given right to exist on the mainstream desktop independent of its merits and that Windows is the inevitable winner unless someone stacks the deck. I take the long view and I think that in the end the platform that provides the best value will win and that the market will do its thing without the regulators taking sides. It might take 10 more years, but as computers evolve into things we can't even imagine (wearable? pervasive and ubiquitos with a universal network maybe?) that Windows will take it's place in the history books as will Linux.
This is not a new phenomena. The shadow IT department is the reason small computers are so dominant. Without their influence we'd all be using great big, centrally controlled, physically isolated, IBM brand mainframes.
You think it was the IT department that made Microsoft ubiquitous?
To me, the funny thing is that very few open source linux loving slashdotters with their subversive anti-monoculture, free-IP loving, idealistic anti-MS ways understand this and therefore where the real disruptive power is located.
They long to be the real shadow IT department with their cool toys that the end users don't understand. But they make the mistake of trying to convert the IT department and ultimately the company goes with what the ever-loving users chose instead.
A programmer at MS on the other hand knows his software or API will be used, whether it's good or not, because it was demanded to exist. In my experience you are quite wrong about this. Microsoft is a fairly ruthless meritocracy and when an individual or group put something out there that is crap, the most likely thing to happen, unless the crap happens to be in some very, very important place, is that it will be supplanted by a competing stack from a newer or overlapping product.
Heck, it doesn't even have to be crap. It might just be that the other group has different needs or that opinion on what is 'best' change.
How many data access stacks can you count from the last 15 years? ODBC, DAO, RDO, OLEDB, ADO, ADO.Net, LINQ....
How many different forms engines and editors?
It's because MS has ALWAYS been a collection of fiefdoms.
I've been doing business with Microsoft for years. I was an MVP for Microsoft Access in the 90's and these days I run a large.Net user group and work as a sales guy for one of the bigger consulting companies. That said...
You could have said the same thing about them in 1997. I've often wondered, but I'm pretty sure it's that way on purpose.
Slashdot Mirror
"The problem of course is I'm saying how the companies should handle them, and I have no authority at any of these places, save people actually valuing my ideas. Personally, I've done some development in the past, and there was the concept of defects. Your bonus would depend on how many defects were in your application at delivery time. These were feature-based defects, but shouldn't vulnerabilities be considered defects as well?"
So, the author freely admits he is neither a developer or a manager. If he was a developer he'd know that these are defects and everyone treats them as such.
If he was a manager, he'd know that one of the surest ways to wreck a good shop is to start doing comp based on defects. Here is what invariably (in my experience) happens when a shop includes defect counts in there comp plans.
1. Relationships between Dev, QA, Product Management and Operations get worse because the terms 'defect' and 'bug' become toxic. In reality these things always exist in software. The last thing you want to do is create barriers to dealing with them. Making the acknowledgment of a defect cost someone money means you will have arguments over every one of them unless they cause an out right crash.
2. Culture becomes overly risk-averse - No one wants to take on difficult problems or blaze new territory. The smartest people will naturally pick the easiest work to minimize the risk of defects.
3. Over-dependence on consultants - More CYA behavior. If it's too complex people will outsource to keep the defects away. This is a very bad thing if the nasty problems are because of business and not technical challenges. Now the people who know enough about the problem domain to understand the risk are hiring proxies who know nothing to avoid responsibility for 'defects'.
You've enabled the trading of trillions of dollars and ginormous salaries for hedge-fund managers based on volunteer-ism.
Nice job! You really showed the capitalists.
The problem with asbestos fibers is that they are long, thin, and straight. Lymphocyte's can't deal with them because they can't wrap around them. The carbon nanotubes that are dangerous are the ones that are shaped the same way.
From the photo in the article, they look safe. There are plenty of rough edges for white cells to grapple.
Given HP's current market position, I don't think you can say the merger was anything other than very successful over the long haul. Mark Hurd has done a hell of a job.
God, I should sleep..... dominant not dominate.
Of course I meant, they were NOT dominate yet in 1995....
"Not only were they in a position to dominate before Windows 95, they were already dominating."
That's the point where I disagree. They were not.
In 1990, MSFT stock was (adjusted for splits) ~$0.65 a share. In 1995, it was ~$3.60 a share (a very respectable increase). In 2000, it was $58.00 a share. They dominated from 1995 through 2000, they were NOT dominate yet in 2000. Windows 95 helped them become dominate, it wasn't a forgone conclusion base on an already ascendant Microsoft.
"It didn't understand USB at all, etc. etc. etc."
The USB 1.0 specification came out in 1996. You couldn't find USB devices on the market until 1997ish.
The anti-trust situation did not come about was not until three-four years latter. In 1995, Lotus was still number 1 in productivity apps, Borland and Sybase made the most popular development tools, IBM had the best positioning in big companies, and Novell was king of the PC network.
Microsoft was a contender in all of these areas and they one. But saying they were in position to dominate the OEMs in 19945-1996 is just untrue. Windows 95 IS what put them into position to abuse the market, but it got them there because it and Office were much better than OS/2 and Lotus.
Warp came put almost a year before Windows 95.
Comparing SGI and NeXTSTEP to Windows - the price point was multiples higher and it's apples to oranges.
Windows and OS/2 3.0 is a fair comparison. There was no real difference in the hardware req's, but one of them required users to edit text files on a setup disk to install from a CD and the other didn't. Guess which one won?
"Microsoft 'won' because they ran on cheaper hardware. In no way was their software superior."
Is nonsense where Warp is concerned, it was first to market, was simillar in price, and ran the same software. Windows beat it because it was easier to set up, easier to use, and had better marketing. IBM lost fair and square.
So basically, you are asying the folks at your last job did a shitty job implementing it?
I'm sure Bill feels just terrible about that...
It'll be either one of the console vendors Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony (Probably Microsoft if they can get their heads out their asses on the matter of DRM. The XBox 360/Windows Media stuff works pretty well already and is simple to set up) or a set-top box vendor (again if they can come up with a DRM strategy).
Apple doesn't make anything that hooks to a TV that has any critical mass.
The greatest subnotebook ever made was the IBM Thinkpad 701c Butterfly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_keyboard
I still have one I bought in 1995 and if anyone would release that form factor with modern innards I'd buy it!
I agree! "These people" really are a problem because they just don't understand things as well as you do.
I believe that when you say they are in the same category as the are disabled, what you really mean is that they are inferior to you and not worth consideration as full-fledged human beings.
It's a shame that they can't use their intellect to understand their place in this complex system of a world we live in.
Maybe I'm reading too much into what you wrote and if so I appologize, but I suspect you are one scarey dude with a serious God complex.
But, I look forward to reading your manifesto.
Call me when you see them deploying new sites that use Flash instead of SilverLight. The fact that they haven't gone back and redone older properties is not surprising; who would?
Hell, they have old SDK documentation (Cabinet SDK) still live that is in RTF format.
Flamebait? You must be joking. I see several others have now made the same point.
If it weren't for the automation provided by IBM to the Third Reich, the Nazis would not have been able to keep tabs on and slaughter so many people. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
'Do no evil.' isn't a motto IBM has, or ever will, adopt.
I think that mandating the inclusion of one single specific competitor in the box and requiring that consumers have to run the installers themselves as TFA suggest crosses some invisible line and is clearly "taking sides". Of course TFA could have suggested that every alternative OS be available. This would only be slightly less appalling than what he actually wrote.
It seems to me that this is a bad idea for two reasons.
The first is that it would require vendors to ensure compatibility at all levels of two different configurations and have two sets of support. Support and warranties aren't free and the cost would be passed on to the consumer either directly as vendors recover the costs or indirectly to to crappy kit if the vendors fail to properly spend the money in the first place.
Secondly, it assumes that Linux has a god given right to exist on the mainstream desktop independent of its merits and that Windows is the inevitable winner unless someone stacks the deck. I take the long view and I think that in the end the platform that provides the best value will win and that the market will do its thing without the regulators taking sides. It might take 10 more years, but as computers evolve into things we can't even imagine (wearable? pervasive and ubiquitos with a universal network maybe?) that Windows will take it's place in the history books as will Linux.
Not script kiddies! Vivoleum was a prank by the Yes Men.
e nt/
http://www.theyesmen.org/
http://www.theyesmen.org/agribusiness/vivoleum/ev
Too funny!
This is not a new phenomena. The shadow IT department is the reason small computers are so dominant. Without their influence we'd all be using great big, centrally controlled, physically isolated, IBM brand mainframes.
You think it was the IT department that made Microsoft ubiquitous?
To me, the funny thing is that very few open source linux loving slashdotters with their subversive anti-monoculture, free-IP loving, idealistic anti-MS ways understand this and therefore where the real disruptive power is located.
They long to be the real shadow IT department with their cool toys that the end users don't understand. But they make the mistake of trying to convert the IT department and ultimately the company goes with what the ever-loving users chose instead.
Heck, it doesn't even have to be crap. It might just be that the other group has different needs or that opinion on what is 'best' change.
How many data access stacks can you count from the last 15 years? ODBC, DAO, RDO, OLEDB, ADO, ADO.Net, LINQ....
How many different forms engines and editors?
It's because MS has ALWAYS been a collection of fiefdoms.
I've been doing business with Microsoft for years. I was an MVP for Microsoft Access in the 90's and these days I run a large .Net user group and work as a sales guy for one of the bigger consulting companies. That said...
You could have said the same thing about them in 1997. I've often wondered, but I'm pretty sure it's that way on purpose.
Linux is too heavy for his weak little laptop to lift.