Quote: "The Windows Shutdown Crapfest"
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A PC World article led me to this blog entry of a (claims to be) former MS employee. I couldn't stop laughing. Just to whet your appetite:
Quote: "But here's how the design process worked: approximately every 4 weeks, at our weekly meeting, our PM would say, "the shell team disagrees with how this looks/feels/works" and/or "the kernel team has decided to include/not include some functionality which lets us/prevents us from doing this particular thing". And then in our weekly meeting we'd spent approximately 90 minutes discussing how our feature -- er, menu -- should look based on this "new" information. Then at our next weekly meeting we'd spend another 90 minutes arguing about the design, then at the next weekly meeting we'd do the same, and at the next weekly meeting we'd agree on something... just in time to get some other missing piece of information from the shell or kernel team, and start the whole process again."
Full article here: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html
Now you know (ahem - perhaps CONFIRMED what we already suspected) why MS has to charge what they charge for their OSes... :P
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The article is 'fun' but the real value are in the comments. Some of them are really interesting and give a good insight about windows development and software engineering:
- The comment of 9:30 AM by an ex manager at Microsoft and the comment of 10:38 PM by an MS developer explaining the reason behind a multi level branches.
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The dependencies handling in windows vs linux (and the way software is build in general). the windows shell is a monolithic design, the problem highlighted is an example of why that's bad.
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The UI design (second 6:15 AM comment)
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The 11:56 AM comment
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...
There is an incredibly long list of comments and some are clueless or downright wrong but it's still a very interesting reading.
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I work for a company which has graphical designers specialized in printing. Unfortunately, they also design the website. They don't know how websites work internally, and what the limitations are, so they come up with the most impossible designs that simply can't be implemented according to standards. Sure, they like their design, so then it's your job to start explaining to them why it can't be done, preferably without using any technical terms..
So, i kind of recognize this situation. They come up with a design, we can't implement half of it because of technical restrictions, they get pissed and make a new design, etc etc. Until nothing gets done at all.
btw: Windows is rather cheap considering what you pay for certain wtf applications made by 'self-made' programmers.
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@GuntherVB said:
btw: Windows is rather cheap considering what you pay for certain wtf applications made by 'self-made' programmers.
That's rather like saying:
Vista: it's better than having your testicles chewed off by a rabid dog
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No it's like saying you can buy the whole kennel with lovely puppies instead of your rabid dog.
