Oh, and I've seen that link before. Dozens of times. In fact, it seems to be the only article ever written that claims Vista is loaded with DRM, because nobody's ever linked me to anything else. In any case, I can assure you as a user of Vista, it's just plain wrong.
If there were actually DRM in Vista, especially crippling DRM, the media would have picked up on it and there'd be dozens of articles, not just that one.
Bloating is not an aspect of 'not being completed'. Bloating is a function of being burdened with unnecessary features and capabiloities.
Well, ok, either way Vista wasn't ready 2-3 years before its release. Argue about the technicalities of the reason if you like.
The security is a nightmare, and remains one,
[Citation Needed]
because Microsoft isn't concerned about protecting the operating system from the programs. They're concerned about protecting content, including the programs, from the user being able to access them, even to simply read them.
Uh, no. Vista hasn't once tried to stop me from accessing any of my programs, or reading any of my data. Even programs and data from competitors. (i.e. Google and Apple. iTunes works fine in Vista.)
That's backwards. Microsoft is losing market share
[Citation Needed]
partially because Vista is a failure.
[Citation Needed]
Vista's has a bigger install base than all Linux distros put together, so by your reckoning that makes Linux a "failure" as well, eh?
And Vista released 2 or 3 years earlier might have benefited from less competition with cleaner, more capable systems such as Linux for servers and Apple for desktops, but it would have still suffered from being seriously bloated and mistaking DRM for security.
Vista doesn't have any DRM. I keep hearing this from Slashdotters, but I've been using Vista for ages and I've yet to come across *any* DRM that wasn't installed by Apple. So... [Citation Needed]
Secondly, yes, it would have been seriously bloated, because it wouldn't have been finished. Microsoft didn't release Vista 2 or 3 years earlier because it wasn't ready for people to use 2 or 3 years earlier. Duh.
The corporate version of Symantec Antivirus is excellent-- updates silently, tells you when something's actually wrong, doesn't bog down the system. I get a license to it from work, so that's what I use.
I'm replying to this because you were being such a jackass on another thread.
That is far from clear. There is a reasonable argument to be made that most foreign aid is harmful. In fact, libertarians and proponents of unfettered markets, the kind of people who hang out at Microsoft, should be quite sympathetic to those arguments.
The kind of people who "hang out at Microsoft" are the salt-of-the-earth regular guys. And women. With varied religious and political beliefs. I suppose you think you have to sign up for the Libertarian Party before you're allowed to accept a job maintaining source control for Excel or something?
Open source has been MUCH BETTER than closed source equivalents for as long as Microsoft has existed. Microsoft has, in fact, incorporated a lot of open source projects into their products.
[citation needed]
This is revisionist history at its worst. What open source project was a better GUI than Windows 95, in 1995? Tell me, I want to download and try it, so I can call you a fucking asshole from a more informed position. And don't pull any of that bullshit about "well, if you took the time to learn CLI...", I want you to put your money where your mouth is and give me the download link directly to it. Hell, Windows 95 had better multiple-monitor support in 1995 than most Linux distros have in 2008.
Where was the open source web browser better than IE around the IE3-5/Netscape 2-4 era? I'd love to play around with that, too.
Hell, open source still doesn't have a printing system as good as Windows', and certainly hasn't for the entire history of Microsoft's existence.
OpenOffice and KOffice will never be "awsome" because they are hamstrung by Microsoft Office compatibility; you can't be awesome if your primary user community demands compatibility with obsolete software.
OpenOffice is hamstrung by Office compatibility, not because it has trouble reading/writing the file formats, but because anybody who's actually used Office for more than 10 minutes will take a look at OpenOffice and say "wow, this is a featureless, slow, bloated piece of shit."
When OpenOffice can actually come within a hundred miles of feature-parity with Office (and I'm talking about ACTUAL feature parity, not open source "well I don't use that feature, therefore it's not important" feature parity), then come back and we can talk. Hell, I'm a complete word processing nerb, and I use Word over Write because Word has Normal View, which is great for typing up the first draft of a long document. Write's been around, what, a decade now? Where's Normal View?
The file format thing is a wild goose chase, OpenOffice is inferior because it's actually inferior, not because it has trouble trading files. In fact, trading files is one of the things is does best.
But open source has long surpassed it with something better: browser based groupware, most of which is open source.
"Better?" That's really stretching the definition. "You don't need Office or Sharepoint! Look, we have... uh... WordPress?" Yah, right.
This has nothing to do with your stance on computer software, it has to do with the fact that you think of Stallman as "an incredibly intelligent person who has the emotional development of a 15 year old". The problem isn't Stallman's emotional development, it's that you confuse conformity with being an adult.
The part that is 15-year-old thinking is literally believing than a specific issue, in this case software licenses, completely dominates everybody's lives. It doesn't. Not even remotely close. Maybe Stallman's life, but he's way off the 'weirdo' charts. You see the same thing from global warming advocates, and they're equally as wrong.
Software licenses aren't really that important. If you want to use open source licenses, you're free too. If you don't, that's fine, you're free to do that also. Amazing, huh?
Saying something like, "you don't believe a certain way about computer software licensing means you don't care about people" is frankly ridiculously... well, toolbag-ish. Asshole. Jerkwad. Whatever term you want to use, you're it.
And maybe I was jumping to conclusions based on your original posting, but your home page confirms it:
He didn't make the original post.
you define yourself in terms of one-dimensional thinking, and your political views are merely platitudes. And, unfortunately, the stupidity of "centrists" like you has brought us people like Bush. Moron elects moron.
Hey, guess what? This is the United States of Fucking America. He can vote for whoever the fuck he wants. Cope. Morons like you make me want to vote for Bush purely out of spite. Maybe for 2008, I'll just write-in "nguy is a douchebag" on the ballot.
I don't agree with a lot of what Stallman says or wants, but there is actually something going on between his ears. With people like you, there's just a big, sucking vacuum.
Because he thinks there are issues in life more important than software licenses? Seriously? You badly, badly need to step away from the computer, nguy, because you're way off the deep end. If software licensing is even in your top 5, you're completely out-of-touch. There's stuff going on right now in the world which is quite literally killing people, and you care more about whether you should have to pay $199 for a copy of Word. It's fucking pathetic, and saying other people don't care because they don't share your pathetic beliefs is off the stupidity scale.
The best and easiest way to reverse global population growth, without violating human rights in a Chinese-esque orgy of jack-booted thug-ish legislation, is to raise the global standard of living. It's a well-established fact that the higher the standard of living, the less population growth there is.
Oh no, I completely agree with you. I also don't agree with this statement:
Browser-specific issues are handled by the AJAX layer, and Google's is pretty solid. In effect, that's a single platform that all their applications are coded against.
As a former Safari user, it's clear that Google's layer is not coded for, nor tested against, Safari. Maybe it's better now, but a year or two ago, it took ages for Google to release *working* Gmail features to Safari browsers, compared with IE and Firefox.
Not because they can't afford it or because they don't care about quality. It's because their corporate culture has no room for the people who see that boring stuff like QA gets done.
I would argue that if the boring stuff like QA isn't getting done, they actually do not care about quality. They operate like open source developers, who never do the boring stuff like QA, or even actually readding or answering bug reports for the most part.
(See http://blakeyrat.com/bugs/ and pay attention to the section on Inkscape and Notepad++. Slashdot, while commercial, also has the open source development philosophy and also doesn't give half-a-shit about bug reports.)
Here's a thought...if the customer really doesn't need your product or it's not worth what you are charging, maybe your product sucks. How about hiring better engineers that can develop a product so good that sells itself instead of paying top dollar for slick sales guys that can talk executives into buying crap.
Maybe the product sucks because the company has too many "better engineers" who don't understand the intended customer, don't know how to make the product usable, and haven't bothered to write any manuals or tutorials for it.
Software development is a team effort. Adding more engineers isn't a recipe for making a product more successful, necessarily.
In addition, Google only has to test on three major browser and a handful of add-ins/third-party toolbars. Microsoft has to test OS releases on thousands of different hardware combinations. It's apples and oranges; considering the environment the Microsoft software runs on, you'd expect it to have a hundred times the bugs of Google's various web apps.
You can change your email address, too. You can also link multiple Passport accounts (under different email addresses) into a single Passport account. That came in handy, since the first time I registered for MSN Gaming Zone I didn't know I was making another Passport, and chose a different email addy. (Would be nice if Open ID had those features.)
I dunno, I just plugged in my Gmail address (and previously my address at a domain I own) and I've had zero problems. In fact, all my "Passport" services, including things like Xbox Live, are under my Gmail address and I've never gotten any grief over it.
In short, I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about.
AIM and MSN have been neck-and-neck for ages. I don't have any contacts on GoogleTalk who don't also have either a AIM or MSN account, and I've never had to turn on Yahoo.
I'm going to try to get people on Skype, though, because file transfers in Skype actually work. All of the third party clients for MSN and AIM screw up file transfers in one way or another, and as a result there's a really good chance you're unable to send files to the person you're talking to. Or if you are able, it goes really slow.
I wish ICQ wouldn't have died. It's truly a better system.
I always resent being numbered. (And yes, when Slashdot numbers me, it bothers the hell out of me too.) The greatest advantage AIM and MSN have over ICQ is that you refer to people as either a handle or their email address, not a number. At least, IMO.
Yes, you can do dumb things with other tools if you try to. But, my point is that such dumb things are common and somewhat encouraged by Flash. Plain old HTML provides a basic user interface that works reasonably well. It's not fancy, but it works. If you try hard enough with JavaScript you can muck things up, but things work reasonably well by default; things only go horribly wrong when developers try to move beyond the basics and make bad decisions in the process. Flash gives you a lot more control over the user interface, but without a basic standard starting point for page structure and navigation (as far as I know). So every Flash developer builds his/her own little custom method of navigation, and many lack sensible functionality, worrying more about cuteness instead. Basic things like hitting CTRL-F to search within a page, or being able to bookmark after navigating around get broken.
Ok, but that big long paragraph? Not Flash's fault.
Look, you can write shitty, gaudy and complicated GUIs in Windows or OS X too, and easily, but people don't-- because they know that customers prefer standard and usable GUIs. The problem "with Flash" isn't Flash, it's web developers that sell shitty, gaudy and complicated websites and the customers who pay them to do it.
You can develop a Flash site with working bookmarks. (Not sure about Find.) Some developers don't do that because their customers don't ask for it. Follow the money. If payment for the site was based on how usable it was, you'd see usable sites.
Is it possible to create a decent website in pure Flash? Perhaps. Is it possible to put a screw into a wall with a hammer? Yes, but it's not the best approach. In practice, pure-Flash websites rarely work well, and that's because Flash isn't a good tool for that particular job. Adobe's website isn't pure Flash. That should tell you something.
I agree with that, but the thing it tells me isn't "Flash should go away," which is what a lot of Slashdotters think. The sad reality is that as long as there are crappy developers, and clients who simply do not care about the quality of the work those developers produce, there'll be crappy Flash sites. Also: crappy desktop programs, AJAX/DHTML sites, etc.
I'd rather work at Microsoft because I actually know something about the industry they're in. Google's "last click" attribution model is basically a scam to make it appear that advertising dollars spent on Google's Search are more valuable than they actually are, by far. Google's competitors have a much fairer attribution model which doesn't mislead customers.
Where did this "for one" meme come from? Just say "I would like to thank you." See how easy that is? No commas, no extraneous words, it's brilliantly simple.
Personally I think people use the "for one" thing to look like they're bucking the crowd, since the traditional use would be something like: "most people in this city think that kicking puppies is good, but I, for one, think it's terrible!" You set yourself apart from the crowd by having some superior morality.
The problem is that in stories like this it makes no sense. There's no crowd you're setting yourself apart from; there's no legions of Slashdotters saying, "damn these jerks, that public domain music should be taken off the web for good!" So it just looks stupid.
Here is an example: A business association's website was redesigned in Flash. Instead of their staff page having a simple list of photos, names, job titles and phone numbers that you could search by hitting CTRL-F, the flash version just shows a photo of all of the staff members and you can only find the job titles and contact info by holding the mouse over the appropriate person's photo. So, if you want to find the contact info for the newsletter producer and you don't already know what he/she looks like, you have to move your mouse over each of 15 different photos until you find the right one. Stupid. There is just too much dumb stuff going on with Flash.
What does that have to do with Flash?
I hate to break this to you, but I could implement the same thing in Javascript really easily. Or even a Windows app, if I wanted.
You're blaming the tool for something that is the fault of the developer who sold this crappy site. (Well, and your associate who apparently contracted the developer without checking out the quality of his work before.)
No, I don't run my own business. I don't need to run my own business to know that I consider someone who harms others to turn a profit an ass.
You have to first show that Microsoft "harmed others" in some way. People only bought Microsoft software voluntarily, they won by out-competing other companies.
It worked from a financial perspective. So what. Exxon is wildly successful. Doesn't mean they aren't harmful.
Oh please, Al Gore makes a shitty movie and suddenly oil products are the worst things ever. Let me remind you that without companies like Exxon we wouldn't have international air travel, plastics, synthetic fabrics and materials (most of them at least), the ability to own a car, cheap relatively-clean power generation in the form of natural gas, cheap and effective fertilizers etc etc. Oil companies have contributed greatly, greatly, to our civilization and society, possibly more than any other industry.
You can't retroactively decree oil the "worst thing ever" when our entire technological base has run on it for a century now, just because "oh we're so GREEN now!" That's re-writing history in the worst way.
I'm all for reducing our dependence on oil, but the only reason we have the luxury to even consider that is a result of all the great advances we've made, many of them built on the very oil we hate so much now.
I put about as much stock in Godwin as I do in your argument that because a company is financially successful, it's a good thing and is to be loved and treated with awe. I'd rather see a business fail than harm people or society as a whole.
Considering that last paragraph, do you honestly believe that the oil industry has harmed people or society? Or are you just following the latest fad with no understanding of history or technology?
Yes, but normal non-geek human beings can also use Word. Maybe if LaTeX was easier-to-use (and had a less stupid name; let's be frank), more people would be willing to give it a try.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok; where's the "losing marketshare" cite?
Oh, and I've seen that link before. Dozens of times. In fact, it seems to be the only article ever written that claims Vista is loaded with DRM, because nobody's ever linked me to anything else. In any case, I can assure you as a user of Vista, it's just plain wrong.
If there were actually DRM in Vista, especially crippling DRM, the media would have picked up on it and there'd be dozens of articles, not just that one.
Bloating is not an aspect of 'not being completed'. Bloating is a function of being burdened with unnecessary features and capabiloities.
Well, ok, either way Vista wasn't ready 2-3 years before its release. Argue about the technicalities of the reason if you like.
The security is a nightmare, and remains one,
[Citation Needed]
because Microsoft isn't concerned about protecting the operating system from the programs. They're concerned about protecting content, including the programs, from the user being able to access them, even to simply read them.
Uh, no. Vista hasn't once tried to stop me from accessing any of my programs, or reading any of my data. Even programs and data from competitors. (i.e. Google and Apple. iTunes works fine in Vista.)
Let's do the Wiki version!
That's backwards. Microsoft is losing market share
[Citation Needed]
partially because Vista is a failure.
[Citation Needed]
Vista's has a bigger install base than all Linux distros put together, so by your reckoning that makes Linux a "failure" as well, eh?
And Vista released 2 or 3 years earlier might have benefited from less competition with cleaner, more capable systems such as Linux for servers and Apple for desktops, but it would have still suffered from being seriously bloated and mistaking DRM for security.
Vista doesn't have any DRM. I keep hearing this from Slashdotters, but I've been using Vista for ages and I've yet to come across *any* DRM that wasn't installed by Apple. So... [Citation Needed]
Secondly, yes, it would have been seriously bloated, because it wouldn't have been finished. Microsoft didn't release Vista 2 or 3 years earlier because it wasn't ready for people to use 2 or 3 years earlier. Duh.
The corporate version of Symantec Antivirus is excellent-- updates silently, tells you when something's actually wrong, doesn't bog down the system. I get a license to it from work, so that's what I use.
Shame that the retail version is so crap.
I'm replying to this because you were being such a jackass on another thread.
That is far from clear. There is a reasonable argument to be made that most foreign aid is harmful. In fact, libertarians and proponents of unfettered markets, the kind of people who hang out at Microsoft, should be quite sympathetic to those arguments.
The kind of people who "hang out at Microsoft" are the salt-of-the-earth regular guys. And women. With varied religious and political beliefs. I suppose you think you have to sign up for the Libertarian Party before you're allowed to accept a job maintaining source control for Excel or something?
Open source has been MUCH BETTER than closed source equivalents for as long as Microsoft has existed. Microsoft has, in fact, incorporated a lot of open source projects into their products.
[citation needed]
This is revisionist history at its worst. What open source project was a better GUI than Windows 95, in 1995? Tell me, I want to download and try it, so I can call you a fucking asshole from a more informed position. And don't pull any of that bullshit about "well, if you took the time to learn CLI...", I want you to put your money where your mouth is and give me the download link directly to it. Hell, Windows 95 had better multiple-monitor support in 1995 than most Linux distros have in 2008.
Where was the open source web browser better than IE around the IE3-5/Netscape 2-4 era? I'd love to play around with that, too.
Hell, open source still doesn't have a printing system as good as Windows', and certainly hasn't for the entire history of Microsoft's existence.
OpenOffice and KOffice will never be "awsome" because they are hamstrung by Microsoft Office compatibility; you can't be awesome if your primary user community demands compatibility with obsolete software.
OpenOffice is hamstrung by Office compatibility, not because it has trouble reading/writing the file formats, but because anybody who's actually used Office for more than 10 minutes will take a look at OpenOffice and say "wow, this is a featureless, slow, bloated piece of shit."
When OpenOffice can actually come within a hundred miles of feature-parity with Office (and I'm talking about ACTUAL feature parity, not open source "well I don't use that feature, therefore it's not important" feature parity), then come back and we can talk. Hell, I'm a complete word processing nerb, and I use Word over Write because Word has Normal View, which is great for typing up the first draft of a long document. Write's been around, what, a decade now? Where's Normal View?
The file format thing is a wild goose chase, OpenOffice is inferior because it's actually inferior, not because it has trouble trading files. In fact, trading files is one of the things is does best.
But open source has long surpassed it with something better: browser based groupware, most of which is open source.
"Better?" That's really stretching the definition. "You don't need Office or Sharepoint! Look, we have ... uh... WordPress?" Yah, right.
This has nothing to do with your stance on computer software, it has to do with the fact that you think of Stallman as "an incredibly intelligent person who has the emotional development of a 15 year old". The problem isn't Stallman's emotional development, it's that you confuse conformity with being an adult.
The part that is 15-year-old thinking is literally believing than a specific issue, in this case software licenses, completely dominates everybody's lives. It doesn't. Not even remotely close. Maybe Stallman's life, but he's way off the 'weirdo' charts. You see the same thing from global warming advocates, and they're equally as wrong.
Software licenses aren't really that important. If you want to use open source licenses, you're free too. If you don't, that's fine, you're free to do that also. Amazing, huh?
Saying something like, "you don't believe a certain way about computer software licensing means you don't care about people" is frankly ridiculously... well, toolbag-ish. Asshole. Jerkwad. Whatever term you want to use, you're it.
And maybe I was jumping to conclusions based on your original posting, but your home page confirms it:
He didn't make the original post.
you define yourself in terms of one-dimensional thinking, and your political views are merely platitudes. And, unfortunately, the stupidity of "centrists" like you has brought us people like Bush. Moron elects moron.
Hey, guess what? This is the United States of Fucking America. He can vote for whoever the fuck he wants. Cope. Morons like you make me want to vote for Bush purely out of spite. Maybe for 2008, I'll just write-in "nguy is a douchebag" on the ballot.
I don't agree with a lot of what Stallman says or wants, but there is actually something going on between his ears. With people like you, there's just a big, sucking vacuum.
Because he thinks there are issues in life more important than software licenses? Seriously? You badly, badly need to step away from the computer, nguy, because you're way off the deep end. If software licensing is even in your top 5, you're completely out-of-touch. There's stuff going on right now in the world which is quite literally killing people, and you care more about whether you should have to pay $199 for a copy of Word. It's fucking pathetic, and saying other people don't care because they don't share your pathetic beliefs is off the stupidity scale.
Toolbag.
The best and easiest way to reverse global population growth, without violating human rights in a Chinese-esque orgy of jack-booted thug-ish legislation, is to raise the global standard of living. It's a well-established fact that the higher the standard of living, the less population growth there is.
Oh no, I completely agree with you. I also don't agree with this statement:
Browser-specific issues are handled by the AJAX layer, and Google's is pretty solid. In effect, that's a single platform that all their applications are coded against.
As a former Safari user, it's clear that Google's layer is not coded for, nor tested against, Safari. Maybe it's better now, but a year or two ago, it took ages for Google to release *working* Gmail features to Safari browsers, compared with IE and Firefox.
Not because they can't afford it or because they don't care about quality. It's because their corporate culture has no room for the people who see that boring stuff like QA gets done.
I would argue that if the boring stuff like QA isn't getting done, they actually do not care about quality. They operate like open source developers, who never do the boring stuff like QA, or even actually readding or answering bug reports for the most part.
(See http://blakeyrat.com/bugs/ and pay attention to the section on Inkscape and Notepad++. Slashdot, while commercial, also has the open source development philosophy and also doesn't give half-a-shit about bug reports.)
Here's a thought...if the customer really doesn't need your product or it's not worth what you are charging, maybe your product sucks. How about hiring better engineers that can develop a product so good that sells itself instead of paying top dollar for slick sales guys that can talk executives into buying crap.
Maybe the product sucks because the company has too many "better engineers" who don't understand the intended customer, don't know how to make the product usable, and haven't bothered to write any manuals or tutorials for it.
Software development is a team effort. Adding more engineers isn't a recipe for making a product more successful, necessarily.
In addition, Google only has to test on three major browser and a handful of add-ins/third-party toolbars. Microsoft has to test OS releases on thousands of different hardware combinations. It's apples and oranges; considering the environment the Microsoft software runs on, you'd expect it to have a hundred times the bugs of Google's various web apps.
I don't know. I changed other accounts to match my existing MSN Messenger account, so I can't answer that.
You can change your email address, too. You can also link multiple Passport accounts (under different email addresses) into a single Passport account. That came in handy, since the first time I registered for MSN Gaming Zone I didn't know I was making another Passport, and chose a different email addy. (Would be nice if Open ID had those features.)
I dunno, I just plugged in my Gmail address (and previously my address at a domain I own) and I've had zero problems. In fact, all my "Passport" services, including things like Xbox Live, are under my Gmail address and I've never gotten any grief over it.
In short, I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about.
AIM and MSN have been neck-and-neck for ages. I don't have any contacts on GoogleTalk who don't also have either a AIM or MSN account, and I've never had to turn on Yahoo.
I'm going to try to get people on Skype, though, because file transfers in Skype actually work. All of the third party clients for MSN and AIM screw up file transfers in one way or another, and as a result there's a really good chance you're unable to send files to the person you're talking to. Or if you are able, it goes really slow.
I wish ICQ wouldn't have died. It's truly a better system.
I always resent being numbered. (And yes, when Slashdot numbers me, it bothers the hell out of me too.) The greatest advantage AIM and MSN have over ICQ is that you refer to people as either a handle or their email address, not a number. At least, IMO.
I don't know who "we" is, but if you mean the US, we have every right to resell a CD, DVD, or video game.
What you can't do is make a copy of the disk and then sell the copy.
Yes, you can do dumb things with other tools if you try to. But, my point is that such dumb things are common and somewhat encouraged by Flash. Plain old HTML provides a basic user interface that works reasonably well. It's not fancy, but it works. If you try hard enough with JavaScript you can muck things up, but things work reasonably well by default; things only go horribly wrong when developers try to move beyond the basics and make bad decisions in the process. Flash gives you a lot more control over the user interface, but without a basic standard starting point for page structure and navigation (as far as I know). So every Flash developer builds his/her own little custom method of navigation, and many lack sensible functionality, worrying more about cuteness instead. Basic things like hitting CTRL-F to search within a page, or being able to bookmark after navigating around get broken.
Ok, but that big long paragraph? Not Flash's fault.
Look, you can write shitty, gaudy and complicated GUIs in Windows or OS X too, and easily, but people don't-- because they know that customers prefer standard and usable GUIs. The problem "with Flash" isn't Flash, it's web developers that sell shitty, gaudy and complicated websites and the customers who pay them to do it.
You can develop a Flash site with working bookmarks. (Not sure about Find.) Some developers don't do that because their customers don't ask for it. Follow the money. If payment for the site was based on how usable it was, you'd see usable sites.
Is it possible to create a decent website in pure Flash? Perhaps. Is it possible to put a screw into a wall with a hammer? Yes, but it's not the best approach. In practice, pure-Flash websites rarely work well, and that's because Flash isn't a good tool for that particular job. Adobe's website isn't pure Flash. That should tell you something.
I agree with that, but the thing it tells me isn't "Flash should go away," which is what a lot of Slashdotters think. The sad reality is that as long as there are crappy developers, and clients who simply do not care about the quality of the work those developers produce, there'll be crappy Flash sites. Also: crappy desktop programs, AJAX/DHTML sites, etc.
I'd rather work at Microsoft because I actually know something about the industry they're in. Google's "last click" attribution model is basically a scam to make it appear that advertising dollars spent on Google's Search are more valuable than they actually are, by far. Google's competitors have a much fairer attribution model which doesn't mislead customers.
Obligatory Bob the Angry Flower comic:
http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif
Where did this "for one" meme come from? Just say "I would like to thank you." See how easy that is? No commas, no extraneous words, it's brilliantly simple.
Personally I think people use the "for one" thing to look like they're bucking the crowd, since the traditional use would be something like: "most people in this city think that kicking puppies is good, but I, for one, think it's terrible!" You set yourself apart from the crowd by having some superior morality.
The problem is that in stories like this it makes no sense. There's no crowd you're setting yourself apart from; there's no legions of Slashdotters saying, "damn these jerks, that public domain music should be taken off the web for good!" So it just looks stupid.
Sorry, resume your discussion.
Here is an example: A business association's website was redesigned in Flash. Instead of their staff page having a simple list of photos, names, job titles and phone numbers that you could search by hitting CTRL-F, the flash version just shows a photo of all of the staff members and you can only find the job titles and contact info by holding the mouse over the appropriate person's photo. So, if you want to find the contact info for the newsletter producer and you don't already know what he/she looks like, you have to move your mouse over each of 15 different photos until you find the right one. Stupid. There is just too much dumb stuff going on with Flash.
What does that have to do with Flash?
I hate to break this to you, but I could implement the same thing in Javascript really easily. Or even a Windows app, if I wanted.
You're blaming the tool for something that is the fault of the developer who sold this crappy site. (Well, and your associate who apparently contracted the developer without checking out the quality of his work before.)
No, I don't run my own business. I don't need to run my own business to know that I consider someone who harms others to turn a profit an ass.
You have to first show that Microsoft "harmed others" in some way. People only bought Microsoft software voluntarily, they won by out-competing other companies.
It worked from a financial perspective. So what. Exxon is wildly successful. Doesn't mean they aren't harmful.
Oh please, Al Gore makes a shitty movie and suddenly oil products are the worst things ever. Let me remind you that without companies like Exxon we wouldn't have international air travel, plastics, synthetic fabrics and materials (most of them at least), the ability to own a car, cheap relatively-clean power generation in the form of natural gas, cheap and effective fertilizers etc etc. Oil companies have contributed greatly, greatly, to our civilization and society, possibly more than any other industry.
You can't retroactively decree oil the "worst thing ever" when our entire technological base has run on it for a century now, just because "oh we're so GREEN now!" That's re-writing history in the worst way.
I'm all for reducing our dependence on oil, but the only reason we have the luxury to even consider that is a result of all the great advances we've made, many of them built on the very oil we hate so much now.
I put about as much stock in Godwin as I do in your argument that because a company is financially successful, it's a good thing and is to be loved and treated with awe. I'd rather see a business fail than harm people or society as a whole.
Considering that last paragraph, do you honestly believe that the oil industry has harmed people or society? Or are you just following the latest fad with no understanding of history or technology?
Yes, but normal non-geek human beings can also use Word. Maybe if LaTeX was easier-to-use (and had a less stupid name; let's be frank), more people would be willing to give it a try.
Tell that to the W3C, please. Their specs are a joke (IMO) until they're willing to commit to writing a reference implementation.
Read this article:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html
Summarizing how Office file formats were made super complex without anybody necessarily doing anything wrong, or anybody writing bad code.
Dude, if there's one person in the world who you can prove conclusively does *not* read Slashdot, at all, it's CmdrTaco. (And the other editors.)