[thelist] Quality Control, etc. of MS products

Burhan Khalid burhankhalid at members.evolt.org
Wed May 22 16:41:01 CDT 2002


[ snippity snip ]
> I'm going to assume you're pretty young (I'm 51, and began coding --
FORTRAN first -- in 1969). (Yeah, I know you warned
> me about making assumptions. Can't go through life that way, my dear.) So
you probably don't
> have the background to remember a time when code was actually pretty
clean, and tight, and users expected absolute
> consistency (even though it was a command line interface -- mostly via
JCL -- or Job Control Language). There were no
> official Quality Control departments, but there were written specs
(usually no documentation, either).
>
[ /snip]

First of all, let me say that I am a late comer to this one...I was having
problems with getting through to the SMTP servers at evolt.  I don't know
how young the person is that you were referring to, but I think that it is
not fair of you to bring up age as a prerequisite ... "so you probably don't
have...".  I am 22, and have had experiences with both FORTRAN and JCL
(mainframe COBOL programming).  It surprises me that you say that there were
"no official Quality Control departments". Since it would make more to sense
to have stringent quality control in those days. Considering that companies
(or universities) that had computer resources (be it mainframe or
workstations), usually charged by CPU time. So, unless you had lots of money
to burn, you made sure that the job you were about to submit was devoid of
errors. Most jobs, if my memory serves me correctly, were sumitted on punch
cards, and it was a pain to go back and have to recode everything once you
found an error.

> Then came Microsoft, and weird things started to happen. I have a huge
pile of complaints about their software, going back
> to my first experiences of their OS [...]

One of the strange things that happened with Microsoft was the computing
became a household name. I don't know how accurate my dates are, but before
Windows first came out, I think there was the Apple I (or was it IIe). Of
course, DOS was around, and computers were very expensive. I remember my dad
buying an IBM XT (8hz, 10 if you hit the turbo button, 40 meg hard disk) for
$5000. Windows took the computing platform to the masses, making it easier
to everyone...not just computer scientists/enthusiasts/geeks.  With mass use
of computers came the inevitable downturn in prices, etc. I am not saying
that Microsoft's practices aren't questionable, after all, they bought DOS
from IBM, and "borrowed" the mouse/gui aspects from Xerox.  You have to
admit though, that it is partly because of Windows that we have such
abundant use of personal computers. How many vendors do you know that
advertise PCs preloaded with Linux/Unix on TV? Last I can remember, the only
time I've even seen Linux in a TV ad was the IBM E-Business ad campaign.

> I've know MS programmers, too, and that's how I know it's not the
programmers who do the bad work. It's the corporate culture.
>

It also has to do with economics. The more new "features" that a program
has, the more the marketing department can hype it, and the more the company
can charge for it...its true for any software business, not just Microsoft.
With stringent deadlines, itchy wall street dynamics, its hardly surprising
that software is being developed at a breakneck speed.

> Btw, I agree with you that MS has very strict standards for *other
companies'* code before they will allow the other companies
> to say their product runs on Windows (whatever version). But they don't
meet their own standards. Remember when all programs
> HAD to be uninstallable? Except, of course, for the MS applications....
>

Hmm...except for IE ... I can't think of any other MS application that can't
be uninstalled. Even windows can be uninstalled, you have to choose the
option at setup.

> Not trying to start a war, but the younger folks don't know why some of us
hate MS so passionately. They have literally killed about
> 4 of my favorite apps (that is, they drove the companies out of the
market; I still use these orphan apps). In one case I know of, they
> told the original owners of XyWrite -- as MS Word was about to come out
with a feature that XyWrite had had for half a decade at that
> point (the auto-spell replace feature, with customizable dictionary), that
they would sue XyWrite if XyWrite didn't remove that feature!
> This is not fair competition; this is bald-faced
app-war-by-having-more-capital-to-pay-lawyers.
>

Don't know the specifics here, but if what you say is right (and not media
hype), then I totally agree.


> Finally, by following exactly the MS instructions, I once destroyed a huge
file which I needed -- in MS Outlook, trying to create a new
> folder (it used the same name, bypassing the steps the instructions had
indicated I would be able to go through to name it; then
> when it asked if I wanted to delete it, and I said yes, it deleted the
PREVIOUS file, the one the cursor was NOT on!). My consulting
> friends (in NYC) advised me to try to contact MS. I walked over there, and
couldn't get past the front desk. Literally. No one in the
> lobby would allow me to talk to anyone, whether I wanted to pay for help
or whatever. That was the last time I used a MS product,
> other than OS's, and I tell everyone all about the dangers of their
products every chance I get.

No one expects microsoft (or anything else, for that matter) to be perfect.
I've had incidents like this happen to me too, but I don't know how adamant
I am about blaming Microsoft.  After all, if I deleted a file, I should have
been able to restore it from backup. That is no excuse for Microsoft's bugs,
but I think that a little bit of responsible computing goes a long way in
preventing tech support headaches.  Yes, they have a responsibility to users
of their software. To make sure that the programs they sell are free of
bugs, and if bugs are detected, they are fixed, promptly. I am not a
Microsoft spokesman, not an employee, but I see too many cases of people
(and companies), blaming Microsoft for their problems, just because its
there, its big, its got money, and everyone else is doing it too.

*waving white flag*
Just my 2 cents,
Burhan Khalid





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