Re: Microsoft tries to polish a turd
- From: Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 08:42:52 -0700
On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:26:23 +0000, Guy Macon
<http://www.GuyMacon.com/> wrote:
Brilliant analysis!
Thanks. Fame and fortune will surely follow. I'll have it framed.
Executive Summary:
* Bug reports are statistically, therefore actually,
unimportant;
Yep. With statistics and sufficient creativity, I can make numbers
say almost anything. If I also write the interpretation of those
numbers, I can do even more.
* If you want a bug fixed, you are (by definition)
in the minority;
Most companies maintain a bug list or database not so that they can
schedule fixes. They do so that they don't waste internal resources
on fixing known bugs.
* Microsoft doesn't care about bugs because bug
fixes are not a significant source of revenue;
It's not just Microsoft. It's like that with most software companies.
* If you think you found a bug, it really only
means you're incompetent;
I've had quite a few arguments with support and development people
trying to report what I consider to be a bug. In many cases, the
employees and zealots consider themselves the first line of defense
for "their" product. It has to be really bad and easily reproduce
able to get them to consider it a bug. In addition, there's
considerable truth to what Bill says about user incompetence. I've
had to slog my way through a huge mass of incoherent and
irreproducible bug lists. In my opinion, the overwhelming number of
reports are not bugs, but user problems. A substantial number are
also just opinions on how things should operate (unexpected behavior)
and are very subjective.
However, that may apply to the GUM (great unwashed masses), but should
not apply to Microsoft's own beta testers. I was involved in the
rather huge Windoze 95 beta test. Thousands of users submitted bug
reports and found problems during the tests. I spent considerable
effort documenting bugs. When the product arrived, most of the bugs
we found were still there. It took years for some of them to be
fixed.
* Anyway, people only complain about bugs to show how
cool they are, not because bugs cause any real problems.
Software companies expect a predictable number of bug reports from
their customers, beta testers, and developers. If the bug reports
don't appear in the designated quantities, they are deemed to be
useless loafers.
Straight from the horse's mouth.
Yeah, but that was 13 years ago, when things were somewhat different.
I don't have any direct contact with Microsoft and am not familiar
with how they operate. However, I was involved with SCO for many
years. If you want bugs fixed, SCO had to allocate the resources.
There was a small group that did maintenance on existing code, but the
really big fixes and added features required that big OEMs (IBM,
Compaq, HP, etc) to pay SCO to fix them.
For a while, I lobbied to have only the minor and easy bugs fixed. The
product was looking rather shabby, with a large number of easily fixed
bugs becoming apparently permanent. As Bill Gates clumsily hinted,
nobody wants to pay to have those fixed. I suggested that instead of
concentrating on the really gross bugs, that require considerable
resources, testing, regression testing, documentation, errata notices,
install packaging, and time. Anything that could be fixed without
affecting other parts of the OS, should be fixed without the attendant
bureaucratic overhead for perhaps 3 or 4 months. In other words, a
general cleanup effort. It didn't sell to management because it was
decided that the allegedly necessary change documentation cost would
exceed the value of the bug fixes. It would also impact the schedule
for fixing the revenue generating big bugs. Grumble.
I have some rather specific issues with Vista. However, they're not
really bugs. They're design decisions that I consider to be a mix of
stupid, sloppy, inept, and not necessary. For example, look in the
root directory of a Vista computah. There's the usual "Program Files"
directory. There's also a new "ProgramData" directory. That's fine,
but what happened to the space between the words "Program" and "Data"?
Apparently, someone discovered that environment variables can't have
spaces in them, so they correctly solved the problem by removing the
space from the environment variable, but also incorrectly removed it
from the directory name. Not a big deal, and probably doesn't affect
anything other than my sense of aesthetics, but is indicative of some
rather shabby design. There's plenty more of the same in Vista, but I
don't wanna unload here.
It will be interesting to see if a few million dollars wasted on
public relations will improve the customers perception of Vista. I
predict it will backfire and be perceived as damage control and making
excuses.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
.
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