Increasingly Microsoft are becoming "just another vendor" and they seem to be ill-placed to adapt to this kind of change in the market. Their recent bemusement at the MA OpenDocument decision is a good case in point. Lecturing your customers on why they're wrong, and maybe a bit stupid, isn't something most companies would try to do.
So now they want to be a Unix vendor? To push themselves into a market packed with Linux solutions and proprietary companies that survived the 80s Unix battles. The ones that allowed Windows NT to get a foothold in server rooms in the first place? Hmmmm. Yeah, that makes sense.
They're probably going through the same pain as many of the other big companies who've seen technologies they thought they owned and dominated by right become commodities.
I'm beginning to wonder if they can find a way to compete now. Without the sort of dirty tricks that everyone is becoming wise to that is.
No, I think you make some reasonable points. I think they did a good job on the series overall and it was a decent attempt to update it without wrecking or throwing away the basic premise. It could certainly have been a lot worse and the look of the show benefitted from having some serious money spent on it this time round.
However, I agree with your points about the lack of logic of some of the plots and the way they were resolved. Having said that, the original series had its share of silly and unscientific plotting.
I thought the interpersonal drama things were overdone. If they're not careful then they risk turning it into the sort of parody seen on comedy sketch shows like Dead Ringers.
The second series is a big opportunity. All the new viewers know the characters now and there's no need for any more "Wow, the Tardis is big" type digressions. Let's hope they come up with the goods.
You seem to be assuming that bug == logical error when it's often the case that a bug is either something that wasn't even considered in the original requirements / design or the result of a set of circumstances that weren't properly tested for "because it can't happen".
There is also performance to consider. Your bunch of college kids may write code that's mathematically correct but when assembled processes 1 transaction a second. This sort of thing occurs with frameworks like J2EE. It's easier to write modular pieces and assemble them it hands you a large performance penalty.
I'm afraid I don't really share your faith in proofs of correctness for large systems. Apart from the problems scaling up these approaches they assume that you can easily mathematically describe how the thing is supposed to behave.
With a word processor this might be something like i18n issues. We might specify, design, build and test the thing without considering the user might not have a us-ascii character set and then it breaks in China. Do we go back to square one and revisit and extend the mathematical model? Then spend x years rippling changes from the theoretical model into the code?
I can't recall seeing anyone use proofs of correctness for something like your word processor example. Can you give me a reference to the literature please as I'm interested to know whether this was successful?
There are arguments for more formal approaches to building software but throughout their working life people are told to 'deliver it quickly and we'll fix it later'. It's a fact of life that people in the 'formal everything' camp need to accept. Programmers don't set out on a project determined to write bugs. Many of them are a result of the poor processes and unrealistic expectations that are endemic in the industry.
BTW I'll take lectures from journalists like the BBC blowhard when he can mathematically prove that his writing contains no errors.
I'm willing to be proved wrong but this is something I just can't see a huge market for. It seems to be aimed at people who:
Watch a lot of TV... but only watch BBC programmes... and don't want to archive their favourite programmes
Have a fast internet connection... but don't download stuff already via P2P
Are into new technology and gadgets... but only Use IE and Windows... and haven't bought a PVR
How many people out of the UK population is that? Its contradictory. People who like watching TV already have better options. If you have a PVR you never miss anything you like. Anyway, many programmes are repeated almost straight away.
In my opinion they should just bite the bullet and start releasing their own programmes under a sharing friendly license. The taxpayers have already paid for them to be made and we already have a VCR / PVR that can keep them longer than 7 days.
Slashdot Mirror
Increasingly Microsoft are becoming "just another vendor" and they seem to be ill-placed to adapt to this kind of change in the market. Their recent bemusement at the MA OpenDocument decision is a good case in point. Lecturing your customers on why they're wrong, and maybe a bit stupid, isn't something most companies would try to do.
So now they want to be a Unix vendor? To push themselves into a market packed with Linux solutions and proprietary companies that survived the 80s Unix battles. The ones that allowed Windows NT to get a foothold in server rooms in the first place? Hmmmm. Yeah, that makes sense.
They're probably going through the same pain as many of the other big companies who've seen technologies they thought they owned and dominated by right become commodities.
I'm beginning to wonder if they can find a way to compete now. Without the sort of dirty tricks that everyone is becoming wise to that is.
Ame
Another earth shattering breakthrough in E-paper that's going to completely change the world? I didn't know it was that time of the week again.
Ok so I'm cynical but if I had a penny for every story on e-paper I've read I'd be able to afford one of the development prototypes, if they existed.
Ame
No, I think you make some reasonable points. I think they did a good job on the series overall and it was a decent attempt to update it without wrecking or throwing away the basic premise. It could certainly have been a lot worse and the look of the show benefitted from having some serious money spent on it this time round.
However, I agree with your points about the lack of logic of some of the plots and the way they were resolved. Having said that, the original series had its share of silly and unscientific plotting.
I thought the interpersonal drama things were overdone. If they're not careful then they risk turning it into the sort of parody seen on comedy sketch shows like Dead Ringers.
The second series is a big opportunity. All the new viewers know the characters now and there's no need for any more "Wow, the Tardis is big" type digressions. Let's hope they come up with the goods.
Ame
You seem to be assuming that bug == logical error when it's often the case that a bug is either something that wasn't even considered in the original requirements / design or the result of a set of circumstances that weren't properly tested for "because it can't happen".
There is also performance to consider. Your bunch of college kids may write code that's mathematically correct but when assembled processes 1 transaction a second. This sort of thing occurs with frameworks like J2EE. It's easier to write modular pieces and assemble them it hands you a large performance penalty.
I'm afraid I don't really share your faith in proofs of correctness for large systems. Apart from the problems scaling up these approaches they assume that you can easily mathematically describe how the thing is supposed to behave.
With a word processor this might be something like i18n issues. We might specify, design, build and test the thing without considering the user might not have a us-ascii character set and then it breaks in China. Do we go back to square one and revisit and extend the mathematical model? Then spend x years rippling changes from the theoretical model into the code?
I can't recall seeing anyone use proofs of correctness for something like your word processor example. Can you give me a reference to the literature please as I'm interested to know whether this was successful?
There are arguments for more formal approaches to building software but throughout their working life people are told to 'deliver it quickly and we'll fix it later'. It's a fact of life that people in the 'formal everything' camp need to accept. Programmers don't set out on a project determined to write bugs. Many of them are a result of the poor processes and unrealistic expectations that are endemic in the industry.
BTW I'll take lectures from journalists like the BBC blowhard when he can mathematically prove that his writing contains no errors.
Ame
I'm willing to be proved wrong but this is something I just can't see a huge market for. It seems to be aimed at people who:
... but only watch BBC programmes ... and don't want to archive their favourite programmes
... but don't download stuff already via P2P
... but only Use IE and Windows ... and haven't bought a PVR
Watch a lot of TV
Have a fast internet connection
Are into new technology and gadgets
How many people out of the UK population is that? Its contradictory. People who like watching TV already have better options. If you have a PVR you never miss anything you like. Anyway, many programmes are repeated almost straight away.
In my opinion they should just bite the bullet and start releasing their own programmes under a sharing friendly license. The taxpayers have already paid for them to be made and we already have a VCR / PVR that can keep them longer than 7 days.
Ame