please stop looking at everything microsoft does as immoral - they are a company, their purpose is to make money
Unless MS has embraced and extended the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, there is no inherent right to the pursuit of desktop control, and MS is a convicted monopolist. I am continually amazed by the people who have been brainwashed into believing that incorporation = no laws = no responsibility.
I opened an email with Mozilla on Windows 2000 that contained a virus. But I didn't click on the attachment because I knew better.
Security through education.
I didn't have to worry about what I clicked on or knowing about the latest virus.
Security through inherent security - it works for me.:)
Some of the most cutting edge applications in existence run on the Windows platform.
Yup. And the rest of the cutting-edge applications run on Apple, Unix, and Linux platforms.
It's faster to develop Windows applications that Unix-based apps because the Windows development environment is so much better, in general.
Really? my experience has been the opposite. After developing an app in Tcl/Tk for a Unix platform, management decided to use a Windows box instead. Even though the design was already done, the VB version took half-again as long to code because anything worth doing required jumping through hoops to make calls to that oh-so-easy Windows API. Watching a simple half-line statement translate into a two-line declaration and a three-line invocation is amazing - especially for what is suppposed to be drag-and-drool programming.
Quite deluding yourself.
Quite? I don't think he was deluding himself at all.
I for one am relieved they are sufficiently incompetent to select Microsoft as their platform. This may, and I stress may, slow down our slide into a complete surveillance society submerged beneath ubiquitous governance.
What happens when the DHS tells ISPs that they will only allow computers with an approved, snoopable, DRM-enhanced OS (Windows) to access the 'net in the name of national security?
What we do know for certain is that it puts a lot of money in the pockets of a convicted monopolist, which isn't helpful to anyone (other than said monopolist).
People joke about MS security being bad, but Linux is no better.
Hmm. I received three emails containing SoBig and looked at them while using Evolution running on Linux. Nothing happened. It didn't propagate. Linux seems more secure to me.
And remember! If you work for MSFT, now you get paid in restricted stock, not stock options!
Don't you think that's just Microsoft's admission that MS stock options are likely to remain underwater and are no longer a reward? They did a split at an unusually low stock price, and it didn't help. They finally agreed to a dividend. I think MS has realized the days of constantly increasing stock price are over.
The shareholders can vote to dissolve the Board. The shareholders can vote to change the management structure. Shareholders can do *ANYTHING* in a corporation.
And the registered electorate could elect a third-party candidate in the U.S. Presidential election. And that has happened, um, zero times? Most shareholders give their proxy to the board of directors by default because they don't reply to the annual notice, which means that the BOD controls everything.
Wrong. The shareholders have absolute, total control over everything in a corporation.
And you are what age? You own how many shares in how many corporations, which have screwed you how many times? Sorry, this is too much fun for someone who has been there.
Will they be the programming jobs? Not if we outsource them all for cheaper - which is the point - perhaps the programming job is no longer needed as much.
Perhaps the people that did that in the past need a new career.
Perhaps the managers of companies that turn over programming jobs and customer data to foreign workers need a new career? After First USA Bank outsourced their IT, I experienced my first case of credit card theft, and the charges did not originate in the U.S.
Nike for instance that once made sports equipment is now only a marketing company, they tend to see it as "selling an image" while the producion is long gone, not even kept within the company.
And I have refused to buy anything with a Nike logo for decades. When I see someone decked out in Nike logos, I ask if they support sweatshop labor, and I usually get a blank stare (sometimes a finger but no fisticuffs yet).
And I always wonder...what the hell do they do for that outrageous salary?? Aside from meetings that waste time...I've never seen a mgr. that really made a difference...
Well, in their spare time, they do their best to screw the company's employees. It's nothing personal, it's just taught in the first MBA class, CEO Survival and Compensation 101.
But, particularly in the software industry, why do we think that we will continue to need people to do basically mindless work? Don't we have design tools, management consoles, IDEs, etc. to do this?
Have you ever performed a non-trivial role in producing a non-trivial application that actually works and meets requirements? Since you asked the question above, I have to doubt it. It's the management that's mindless, and I was in a meeting today that illustrates it. The various projects, which are different projects because they do unique things, were exhorted to promote code sharing and reuse between projects. Great management-speak and total nonsense.
My comments we're inappropriately worded. Thanks for the correction
Don't apologize just because he put words in your mouth. I read the post and there was nothing racist about it. I have worked with H-1Bs (Indian, Chinese, Canadian, whatever), and they run the gamut from good to lousy, just like local programmers. Ye gods, people have become afraid to speak the unqualified truth because the narrow-minded will call them names.
If we are spreading the wealth to other countries by employing people there, then they have more money to spend on crap.
Hence they too can buy the products.
I'm not picking on you, guy, but a foreign worker making one-tenth the salary of an American worker is not going to be in the market for the expensive products the American companies are selling. And they can get soap and toilet paper cheaper from local companies, so we aren't talking about inexpensive products. If you're talking about many generations to bring third-world wages up to American levels, I'd suggest there's a logical disconnect.
[Y]ou can't outsource your leading braintrust and be successful, if due to nothing else but cultrural issues. . . . Logic, Math, manpower, etc - all basic skills can be outsourced - but the executives at the top do more than that and are much harder to outsource.
Do tell. Your MBA is showing. What makes someone who took the easy courses and got an MBA smarter and more insightful than the person who took the hard courses and got a MS? Please explain the mysterious "more than that" that executives do (other than lots of golf) while they lead companies into ruin. Is it the lying, the cheating, or the stealing that can't be outsourced? Admittedly, non-American executives might have higher standards.
Cultural issues? You mean American CEOs can easily manage a foreign workforce, but a foreigner couldn't manage an American company? Sounds like someone has a double standard. And if you want to discuss outsourcing "braintrust", that is exactly what is happening. Computer science will become something Americans don't do because of shortsighted, greedy CEOs. There has already been a hefty drop in CS enrollments. Please remember, when you outsource your IT, you are handing over the keys to your company. All the company's data is available to the people who manipulate it, even though they may have been taught to hate the company and people they now supposedly work for.
All joking aside, you can bet that's what's going to come next. After all, the almighty shareholders, who upper management have sworn to please at all costs, will have seen the next quarter projection increases possible due to outsourcing.
No, I don't believe that will happen for a couple of reasons. First, top management doesn't really care about shareholders, although they make it appear that way. The CEO cares about his stock options which, thanks to federal regulations, now make up much or most of his potential compensation. It is in the CxO's best interest to sharply pump the company's stock price to make her options profitable, then to have the stock price fall (and blame it on non-productive employees or the economy) before the next batch of options is issued. Rinse and repeat.
Second, stockholders in most companies have very little control over the top management and their compensation (I think plunder would be a better word). That is in the hands of the board of directors who all happen to be CEOs in other companies. It's a mutual back scratching aristocracy for good ol' boys and girls.
Note to parent: Emotive representation does not quite cover the abhorant monstrosity that is the Lotus Notes groupware client. . . .
Amen. And when it is (regularly) hosed and "performs an illegal operation" and is shut down, it can't be restarted unless you reboot. So much for Lotus Notes and the great new OS that no longer has BSOD problems.
I think it's great that they are moving it beyond being an Outlook-alike. Why limit yourself to copying Microsofts mediocre offerings? Go above and beyond.
Exactly. Why should Ximian have to ape (sorry, I couldn't help it) Microsoft. My pet peeve with KDE is that they once had the desktop icons working correctly: you click on one, it opens something. Now, you have to double-click an icon to open something. Why should I have to double-click other than the fact that MS does it that way?
. . . Evolution is just butt slow. Butt slow. I'm using version 1.2 that comes with Linux 9.0 and it's slow.
If you're talking about Mandrake 9.0, you have reason to complain. The version of Evolution (1.2.4, I believe) that comes with Mandrake 9.1 is worlds better. Graphics load quickly now (which isn't really that great if it's one of those "See what these girls do on the farm" spam). The switch between messages is fast, and there's no more occasional hang on shutdown.
You are changing the subject.
This is about developers, not end users.
I don't think I changed the subject. The original developers lose in either case. If MS *embraces* your app's functionality, they get paid for it. If OS duplicates your app, at least the users don't have to pay for it. I consider it the lesser of two evils. Just because Dan Bricklin wrote the first spreadsheet, it didn't mean no one else could write one. If your stuff is really that innovative, then you should patent it (I can't believe I recommended that.:)
You mean like how if anyone has a good piece of software out there, the linux world makes one for free and it ends up in a major linux distribution?
And it costs the end-user nothing. But when Microsoft rips off a program and embeds it into Windows and charges the users more for the functionality, that's a good thing?
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please stop looking at everything microsoft does as immoral - they are a company, their purpose is to make money
Unless MS has embraced and extended the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, there is no inherent right to the pursuit of desktop control, and MS is a convicted monopolist. I am continually amazed by the people who have been brainwashed into believing that incorporation = no laws = no responsibility.
I opened an email with Mozilla on Windows 2000 that contained a virus. But I didn't click on the attachment because I knew better.
Security through education.
I didn't have to worry about what I clicked on or knowing about the latest virus.
:)
Security through inherent security - it works for me.
Coders don't end comments with a semicolon. That would be a wasted keystroke.
Some of the most cutting edge applications in existence run on the Windows platform.
Yup. And the rest of the cutting-edge applications run on Apple, Unix, and Linux platforms.
It's faster to develop Windows applications that Unix-based apps because the Windows development environment is so much better, in general.
Really? my experience has been the opposite. After developing an app in Tcl/Tk for a Unix platform, management decided to use a Windows box instead. Even though the design was already done, the VB version took half-again as long to code because anything worth doing required jumping through hoops to make calls to that oh-so-easy Windows API. Watching a simple half-line statement translate into a two-line declaration and a three-line invocation is amazing - especially for what is suppposed to be drag-and-drool programming.
Quite deluding yourself.
Quite? I don't think he was deluding himself at all.
I for one am relieved they are sufficiently incompetent to select Microsoft as their platform. This may, and I stress may, slow down our slide into a complete surveillance society submerged beneath ubiquitous governance.
What happens when the DHS tells ISPs that they will only allow computers with an approved, snoopable, DRM-enhanced OS (Windows) to access the 'net in the name of national security?
What we do know for certain is that it puts a lot of money in the pockets of a convicted monopolist, which isn't helpful to anyone (other than said monopolist).
Couldn't agree more.
People joke about MS security being bad, but Linux is no better.
Hmm. I received three emails containing SoBig and looked at them while using Evolution running on Linux. Nothing happened. It didn't propagate. Linux seems more secure to me.
This is known as "Security through inaccessibility"
Are you sure it's not Security Through Instability?
And remember! If you work for MSFT, now you get paid in restricted stock, not stock options!
Don't you think that's just Microsoft's admission that MS stock options are likely to remain underwater and are no longer a reward? They did a split at an unusually low stock price, and it didn't help. They finally agreed to a dividend. I think MS has realized the days of constantly increasing stock price are over.
The shareholders can vote to dissolve the Board. The shareholders can vote to change the management structure. Shareholders can do *ANYTHING* in a corporation.
And the registered electorate could elect a third-party candidate in the U.S. Presidential election. And that has happened, um, zero times? Most shareholders give their proxy to the board of directors by default because they don't reply to the annual notice, which means that the BOD controls everything.
Wrong. The shareholders have absolute, total control over everything in a corporation.
And you are what age? You own how many shares in how many corporations, which have screwed you how many times? Sorry, this is too much fun for someone who has been there.
Or sue them. Welcome to America, land of the free and the brave?
Good point. I'd better go to bed before I instigate a lawsuit. ;)
Will they be the programming jobs? Not if we outsource them all for cheaper - which is the point - perhaps the programming job is no longer needed as much. Perhaps the people that did that in the past need a new career.
Perhaps the managers of companies that turn over programming jobs and customer data to foreign workers need a new career? After First USA Bank outsourced their IT, I experienced my first case of credit card theft, and the charges did not originate in the U.S.
Nike for instance that once made sports equipment is now only a marketing company, they tend to see it as "selling an image" while the producion is long gone, not even kept within the company.
And I have refused to buy anything with a Nike logo for decades. When I see someone decked out in Nike logos, I ask if they support sweatshop labor, and I usually get a blank stare (sometimes a finger but no fisticuffs yet).
And I always wonder...what the hell do they do for that outrageous salary?? Aside from meetings that waste time...I've never seen a mgr. that really made a difference...
Well, in their spare time, they do their best to screw the company's employees. It's nothing personal, it's just taught in the first MBA class, CEO Survival and Compensation 101.
But, particularly in the software industry, why do we think that we will continue to need people to do basically mindless work? Don't we have design tools, management consoles, IDEs, etc. to do this?
Have you ever performed a non-trivial role in producing a non-trivial application that actually works and meets requirements? Since you asked the question above, I have to doubt it. It's the management that's mindless, and I was in a meeting today that illustrates it. The various projects, which are different projects because they do unique things, were exhorted to promote code sharing and reuse between projects. Great management-speak and total nonsense.
My comments we're inappropriately worded. Thanks for the correction
Don't apologize just because he put words in your mouth. I read the post and there was nothing racist about it. I have worked with H-1Bs (Indian, Chinese, Canadian, whatever), and they run the gamut from good to lousy, just like local programmers. Ye gods, people have become afraid to speak the unqualified truth because the narrow-minded will call them names.
If we are spreading the wealth to other countries by employing people there, then they have more money to spend on crap. Hence they too can buy the products.
I'm not picking on you, guy, but a foreign worker making one-tenth the salary of an American worker is not going to be in the market for the expensive products the American companies are selling. And they can get soap and toilet paper cheaper from local companies, so we aren't talking about inexpensive products. If you're talking about many generations to bring third-world wages up to American levels, I'd suggest there's a logical disconnect.
[Y]ou can't outsource your leading braintrust and be successful, if due to nothing else but cultrural issues. . . . Logic, Math, manpower, etc - all basic skills can be outsourced - but the executives at the top do more than that and are much harder to outsource.
Do tell. Your MBA is showing. What makes someone who took the easy courses and got an MBA smarter and more insightful than the person who took the hard courses and got a MS? Please explain the mysterious "more than that" that executives do (other than lots of golf) while they lead companies into ruin. Is it the lying, the cheating, or the stealing that can't be outsourced? Admittedly, non-American executives might have higher standards.
Cultural issues? You mean American CEOs can easily manage a foreign workforce, but a foreigner couldn't manage an American company? Sounds like someone has a double standard. And if you want to discuss outsourcing "braintrust", that is exactly what is happening. Computer science will become something Americans don't do because of shortsighted, greedy CEOs. There has already been a hefty drop in CS enrollments. Please remember, when you outsource your IT, you are handing over the keys to your company. All the company's data is available to the people who manipulate it, even though they may have been taught to hate the company and people they now supposedly work for.
All joking aside, you can bet that's what's going to come next. After all, the almighty shareholders, who upper management have sworn to please at all costs, will have seen the next quarter projection increases possible due to outsourcing.
No, I don't believe that will happen for a couple of reasons. First, top management doesn't really care about shareholders, although they make it appear that way. The CEO cares about his stock options which, thanks to federal regulations, now make up much or most of his potential compensation. It is in the CxO's best interest to sharply pump the company's stock price to make her options profitable, then to have the stock price fall (and blame it on non-productive employees or the economy) before the next batch of options is issued. Rinse and repeat.
Second, stockholders in most companies have very little control over the top management and their compensation (I think plunder would be a better word). That is in the hands of the board of directors who all happen to be CEOs in other companies. It's a mutual back scratching aristocracy for good ol' boys and girls.
Note to parent: Emotive representation does not quite cover the abhorant monstrosity that is the Lotus Notes groupware client. . . .
Amen. And when it is (regularly) hosed and "performs an illegal operation" and is shut down, it can't be restarted unless you reboot. So much for Lotus Notes and the great new OS that no longer has BSOD problems.
I think it's great that they are moving it beyond being an Outlook-alike. Why limit yourself to copying Microsofts mediocre offerings? Go above and beyond.
Exactly. Why should Ximian have to ape (sorry, I couldn't help it) Microsoft. My pet peeve with KDE is that they once had the desktop icons working correctly: you click on one, it opens something. Now, you have to double-click an icon to open something. Why should I have to double-click other than the fact that MS does it that way?
. . . Evolution is just butt slow. Butt slow. I'm using version 1.2 that comes with Linux 9.0 and it's slow.
If you're talking about Mandrake 9.0, you have reason to complain. The version of Evolution (1.2.4, I believe) that comes with Mandrake 9.1 is worlds better. Graphics load quickly now (which isn't really that great if it's one of those "See what these girls do on the farm" spam). The switch between messages is fast, and there's no more occasional hang on shutdown.
You are changing the subject. This is about developers, not end users.
I don't think I changed the subject. The original developers lose in either case. If MS *embraces* your app's functionality, they get paid for it. If OS duplicates your app, at least the users don't have to pay for it. I consider it the lesser of two evils. Just because Dan Bricklin wrote the first spreadsheet, it didn't mean no one else could write one. If your stuff is really that innovative, then you should patent it (I can't believe I recommended that. :)
AC comments: nonsense by clueless people who are not willing to put their real nick on their opinions (with good reason).
You mean like how if anyone has a good piece of software out there, the linux world makes one for free and it ends up in a major linux distribution?
And it costs the end-user nothing. But when Microsoft rips off a program and embeds it into Windows and charges the users more for the functionality, that's a good thing?