I wonder if it really has to do with sustaining the pipeline, as much being mired in corperate BS. Why is this company that makes money hand over fist with some of the best programming talent you can find putting out products that are hardly better than the last version?
I wish there was a -1 Logical Fallacy comment moderation.
Your comment that MS is "putting out products that are hardly better than the last version" is highly subjective, and 100% false to the vast majority of people in the world -- whom I'm sure you'll probably dismiss ignorantly as "sheeple" or somesuch. The facts, if you care too look them up, is that MS is *constantly* innovating, constantly exploring new ideas, constantly adding feature after feature.
Your claims that the company cannot sustain itself are baseless and probably just wishful thinking.
So what exactly constitutes a "software engineer"?
The question for the ages. Nobody really knows, to be honest. More accurately, we can't decide. Wikipedia touches on the subject, if you want to read more:
You remember the A-Team episodes where they weld steel plates on the outside of a car or whatever, drop a bus engine in it, stick some guns on and go ass-kickin?
So you're saying that the Human Brain stores all of its memory as an interference pattern of two lasers? I've heard of sharks with lasers attached to their heads, but humans? Interesting.
Adobe will be under an immense amount of pressure from this though. MS wants to steal their bread and butter. I expect a lawsuit in 2 years for UI infringment.
God, I hoped not. One thing I consistently dislike about Photoshop is the UI. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a pretty good track record for UI. I had high hopes that Expression Graphic Designer would have a better UI than Photoshop, but with all the goodies.
Alas, I've downloaded the CTP. Less features and a klunky UI. Even GIMP is better. Heck, Paintshop Pro is better.
This was a time before feeping creaturitis had led to a situation where the user could spend several minutes navigating menus looking for a particular function.
Actually, Microsoft uses the words "feature creep" as their justification for the new UI in Office 12/2007.
I'm still on the fence on whether or not ribbons are a Good Thing (tm). I haven't fooled around with the beta, and until I use it I can't comment for sure, but my first impression is that ribbons a) increase the number of clicks required to perform a particular function and b) might just be clunky in and of themselves regardless of how many clicks you have to use to do something. If you add to that the fact that there is no "legacy" UI (you're stuck with ribbons in Office 2007, period) and the apparent lack of control a user has over the ribbon (it's stuck at the top, period), it's quite possible that Office 2007 may bomb. MS can recover, sure, but I think rolling out ribbons-only Office is risky. Ironically, the type of risk that MS often avoids.
As for "seldom used functions", those functions are in MS Office (and, by correlation, OOo) because enough users requested them. MS rarely adds features that weren't heavily requested by focus groups and end users.
I should have been more explicit that it's "halfway" decent. It's a compromise between secure and accessible.
Microsoft has made the observation that, no matter how often they tell people not to do it (and they do, frequently), most users, including "enterprise/business" users who should know better, are going to be logged in as Administrator, even when they don't need it.
If they just let them do things as Administrator, Microsoft gets beat up by security zealots for other people's mistakes. If they prompt Administrators to think about what they're doing, they get beat up by UX zealots for making things take too many steps.
Microsoft is trying to balance both aspects. In this case, the security zealots won over the UX zealots.
Looks like you got it -- Vista prompts you for permission to do administrative stuff, even if you're logged on as administrator, rather than granting it by default. Took them a few years, but they finally got that part right.
As for better security from a MS OS, there's always Singularity, but it's several years away.
Yes, they have plans for the server version. It will be released ("hopefully") in 2007, similar to the XP/Server2003 release. That's probably where the original 8-version rumor came from -- two server versions that will not be released as Windows Vista, but as Windows Server 2007 (that's the likely title according to the presenter I saw last Thursday, but don't quote him on it!!;) ).
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if it really has to do with sustaining the pipeline, as much being mired in corperate BS. Why is this company that makes money hand over fist with some of the best programming talent you can find putting out products that are hardly better than the last version?
I wish there was a -1 Logical Fallacy comment moderation.
Your comment that MS is "putting out products that are hardly better than the last version" is highly subjective, and 100% false to the vast majority of people in the world -- whom I'm sure you'll probably dismiss ignorantly as "sheeple" or somesuch. The facts, if you care too look them up, is that MS is *constantly* innovating, constantly exploring new ideas, constantly adding feature after feature.
Your claims that the company cannot sustain itself are baseless and probably just wishful thinking.
Slashdot needs a +1 Busini-babble moderation.
Was that the same episode where Hannibal dressed up in a goofy costume, Face flirted with some hot chick, and BA got angry at Murdoch's crazy antics?
You left out BA refusing to fly, then un-questioningly quaffing a mickeyed milk and sleeping through the rest of the episode.
Here is a very interesting article I found in that Wikipedia article. It's the U.S. Dept. of Labor definition of the "Computer Software Engineer".
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos267.htm
So what exactly constitutes a "software engineer"?
# Debate_over_who_is_a_software_engineer
The question for the ages. Nobody really knows, to be honest. More accurately, we can't decide. Wikipedia touches on the subject, if you want to read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering
You remember the A-Team episodes where they weld steel plates on the outside of a car or whatever, drop a bus engine in it, stick some guns on and go ass-kickin?
:)
You mean every A-Team episode, ever?
Please learn to recognize an obvious joke.
kthxbye
So you're saying that the Human Brain stores all of its memory as an interference pattern of two lasers? I've heard of sharks with lasers attached to their heads, but humans? Interesting.
"Now imagine how the productivity numbers would skyrocket if they managed to mix programming and pr0n"
Well, it's not exactly programming, but there's always:
talk, date, cd, mv, unzip, strip, look, touch, touch, condom, fsck, fsck, more, yes, yes, fcsk, uncondom, condom, more, yes, yes, uptime, gasp, more, more, yes, unmount, make clean, shutdown now
Adobe will be under an immense amount of pressure from this though. MS wants to steal their bread and butter. I expect a lawsuit in 2 years for UI infringment.
God, I hoped not. One thing I consistently dislike about Photoshop is the UI. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a pretty good track record for UI. I had high hopes that Expression Graphic Designer would have a better UI than Photoshop, but with all the goodies.
Alas, I've downloaded the CTP. Less features and a klunky UI. Even GIMP is better. Heck, Paintshop Pro is better.
That was my first thought as well...
/.ers need to turn in their geek badges. :)
And, frankly, I was surprised that I got this far down the first page before it was mentioned! I think more
I hated the DVD +/- wars. They were stupid and quite frankly boring to me as a consumer of DVD video.
The whole war died when everybody started supporting both formats. Here's hoping the HD/Blue war will die without a shot fired.
This was a time before feeping creaturitis had led to a situation where the user could spend several minutes navigating menus looking for a particular function.
Actually, Microsoft uses the words "feature creep" as their justification for the new UI in Office 12/2007.
I'm still on the fence on whether or not ribbons are a Good Thing (tm). I haven't fooled around with the beta, and until I use it I can't comment for sure, but my first impression is that ribbons a) increase the number of clicks required to perform a particular function and b) might just be clunky in and of themselves regardless of how many clicks you have to use to do something. If you add to that the fact that there is no "legacy" UI (you're stuck with ribbons in Office 2007, period) and the apparent lack of control a user has over the ribbon (it's stuck at the top, period), it's quite possible that Office 2007 may bomb. MS can recover, sure, but I think rolling out ribbons-only Office is risky. Ironically, the type of risk that MS often avoids.
As for "seldom used functions", those functions are in MS Office (and, by correlation, OOo) because enough users requested them. MS rarely adds features that weren't heavily requested by focus groups and end users.
This is a bad idea for anyone who doesn't compile from source (And for Ooo, I'm sure that's the majority!), but you do have the right idea.
If you don't compile from source, how do you compile at all?
And, that light bulb is just as annoying as clippy was.
At least it's not animated. Or it isn't in the version I used to run.
Perhaps airplanes could use a little nanotube paint as well?
Maybe they could use a little nanotube paint. :)
I should have been more explicit that it's "halfway" decent. It's a compromise between secure and accessible.
Microsoft has made the observation that, no matter how often they tell people not to do it (and they do, frequently), most users, including "enterprise/business" users who should know better, are going to be logged in as Administrator, even when they don't need it.
If they just let them do things as Administrator, Microsoft gets beat up by security zealots for other people's mistakes. If they prompt Administrators to think about what they're doing, they get beat up by UX zealots for making things take too many steps.
Microsoft is trying to balance both aspects. In this case, the security zealots won over the UX zealots.
Looks like you got it -- Vista prompts you for permission to do administrative stuff, even if you're logged on as administrator, rather than granting it by default. Took them a few years, but they finally got that part right.
As for better security from a MS OS, there's always Singularity, but it's several years away.
Yes, they have plans for the server version. It will be released ("hopefully") in 2007, similar to the XP/Server2003 release. That's probably where the original 8-version rumor came from -- two server versions that will not be released as Windows Vista, but as Windows Server 2007 (that's the likely title according to the presenter I saw last Thursday, but don't quote him on it!! ;) ).
It's a free sample!
I wish I hadn't just blown my mod points, you deserve several +1, Funny moderations.
I still have coffee dripping out my nose. Damn, that's hot!
Read the grandparent post. -1 is the default value, presumably implying that there is no maximum number of entries in the session history.
How often have you edited your own bio to make yourself look good? :D
You're right. I over-generalized.