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Lacking direction
by kaiwai on Wed 25th Jun 2008 10:09 UTC
Member since:

1) Windows Vista was released with a mountain of new api's, and yet, not a single bundled application takes advantage of these new apis. Why are components within Windows still using widget kits from circa win 3.1 for instance - anyone notice that Windows 3.1 dialogue in the font add/remove?

This is a symptom of a bigger problem, and Microsoft's unwillingness to throw things out. They seem to be like a compulsive hoarder who claims that 'one day I might need it' but reality is, that 'one day' never actually comes.

This then rolls onto Microsoft complaining that software and hardware drivers aren't coming out faster enough; again, the role of the operating system vendor is that of leadership - how can one take the operating system company seriously when it refuses to use the new API's itself for its own applications.

2) Its the small things that count. Bill Gates seems to be off on flights of fancy whilst ignoring it is the little things that make a desktop pleasant. Take Mac OS X and KDE, for example - spell checking everywhere. A decent command line and file system structure for the 21st century rather than the hobbled together DOS paradigm Microsoft is still hugging onto like a life raft.

3) Issue every programmer with a Pentium III with 512MB RAM; their objective should be to get it running smoothly on that. Stop showering your programmers with luxury. Maybe if they saw their application on a woefully under powered machine, and had to use those machines on a daily basis - it would give them a greater appreciation for optimising code.

** Side note, in all honesty, I would give Windows a second chance, but it would require a major overhaul for me to do so. I have nothing against Microsoft, but what I don't like is Windows, and the constricted nature of it when it comes to using the command line, or really bone head stupid ideas such as, in the case of Windows Messenger Live, not possible to change preferences unless logged in.

Edited 2008-06-25 10:12 UTC

Reply Score: 5