Flutterby™! : gratuitous shot at microsoft 2005-06-16 15:53:11.095038+00

gratuitous shot at microsoft

2005-06-16 15:53:11.095038+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

But then he goes and says something stupid about the Windows software-based load balancer they're using prefering to send the same users to the same part of the cluster "so stateful web applications still work even if the state is maintained on one computer." That was the point at which the respect meter started its rapid leftward motion...

I forget what the incident was that turned me off from Joel On Software, and I'm too lazy to go back and figure out exactly what it was, but the symptoms John describes are typical of issues I've run into from ex-'Softies in general: They don't have enough experience with other ways of doing things to actually be able to present alternatives to the "hey, we just graduated from college and thought this would be a great idea" way. Smart guys, just not terribly experienced, and it ends up showing up as such in their software.

I'd like to see the actual numbers some time, but I would bet that Microsoft favors people with just a BS over an MS or PhD. One of the things you learn to do when you work on a thesis is literature review. The idea being that before you start putting to much brain-power into coming up with a new idea, you make sure you've read everything anyone else has done along the same lines. Keeps the wheel from being patented too many times! But the software industry is renowned for reinvention...

The whole reason we have email viruses is because Microsoft decided email needed to be something other than a text communication protocol. Just as people think a slide presentation has to be loaded with transitions and graphics (ala PowerPoint), email now has to be loaded with "stationery" and graphic emoticons. Add to that a little VBS script... and, well... You know... And I'm sure there was some software engineer in the trenches on the Outlook team who said "you know, we really shouldn't make the email reader run code in emails so readily..."

I know from experience that the idea behind having code in email was Microsoft's answer to mainframe email forms. If you've ever worked in a shop that uses email for official approvals, you know that code is usually tied to the email to allow "signatures" by the reader. The signatures are tracked by accounting systems and are not simple authentications. But where Microsoft screwed up was that they implemented forms in a way that let the email client open to virus and gave us all "A Good Time".

What I most get from Joel's writings (that which is most lacking where I work) is a good process framework for software development. Everything I've read from him in that regard has been spot on - at least in my perception/experience.

#Comment Re: email viruses made: 2005-06-17 05:18:01.983988+00 by: td [edit history]

Microsoft was a late comer in the "enhanced" email business, as they have been in most applications. 10 or 15 years ago it was General Magic promoting a system called Telescript that essentially transmitted computations through email. They envisioned doing many clever things with it that suggested all sorts of attractive business opportunities. When they were looking around for business partners, they came to AT&T, who asked some of the Bell Labs experts, including me. I wrote a couple of early papers on computer viruses back in 1989, so when I looked at the General Magic proposal, I immediately thought "mmm, virus medium" and advised my bosses to have nothing to do with them. (The reason I gave up on virus junk after the first couple of papers is that it quickly became obvious that there was no way to make them safe enough to use for legitimate, interesting purposes, a judgement that has been mightily confirmed by subsequent history.) Eventually General Magic gave up trying to foist this stuff on people, presumably after getting similar reactions from every other potential business partner. The difference with Microsoft is that they don't need business partners, so their dopey ideas get no backpressure before they're foisted on the public at large.

[Later: hmm, a quick web search reveals that AT&T actually signed on to work with General Magic -- fortunately, nothing came of it.]

I've never heard it put so succinctly. You just made my day! That will be added to my list of favorite quotes, right up there with Dan's infamous:

#Comment Re: [Entry #8000] Re: made: 2005-06-21 12:56:02.616294+00 by: John Anderson

I agree -- and that's what makes the ignorance on sysadmin-type stuff so jarring to me. (And it somewhat makes me question what he has to say about development; I wonder if he's just as wrong on that stuff, but I don't have enough experience/domain knowledge in that area to spot it.)