Thoughts on Microsoft Response Point

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Politics of Programming

What has been so hard about being articulate and clear to
the end user? Why, to this day, are arcane and obtuse
references constantly popping up on Windows machines?
It's a legacy of obfuscation that has come from a
programming culture. This culture has lorded it over users
for 15 years and they are sick and tired of bitter and
poorly socialized nerds taking extended revenge for a
wedgie in the schoolyard 30 years ago. The complexity of
these systems has had to rear it's ugly head every hour,
just so we can be made aware how smart and hard working
it's programmers are.

Real advocates for machine code as a new lingua franca
will endorse a foundation of open standards, accessible to
everyone, not API "product" to a boys club. Utopian?
Maybe, but affirmative action, the GPL, and our highest
courts have been required to gain a reasonable middle
ground. Real advocates for the monetization of software
meanwhile, understand the cash comes from the
consumer, not the programmer.

Now, after an monopoly finding, and a short leash, a new,
real, and truly open market exerts it's influence.
Consumers, not OEMs not programmers, not the tech cognoscenti, are at the tiller. Can we now expect software
to be poorly made because the arbiter of what will sell is
non-technical? That's doesn't seem to be happening.
Software is no worse, and arguably better. Stinkers on the
iPhone's App store are voted into an ignominious end
while the winners receive windfalls. Social networking and
the desire to "author" opinion makes redundant or second
rate programmers improve or go away. Like they should.
The cultivation of mediocrity is over.

So more power to the new Microsoft. The one that now has
to sell to users directly. If they had to do more of it earlier,
it would have had a less incestuous, higher quality
product. In the midst of a 300 million dollar approval
seeking ad campaign, targeting users directly, it's also
good to see they may have something to back it up.

Posted by: Harry Bardal   Posted on: 09/24/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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