Document doldrums for Microsoft

[icyrus]

K, well hop on over to the events model section and take a peek. Layout, etc might be one thing, but what prevents a site from functioning full stop is the browser javaScript implementation. IE has a superior implementation accross the board.

Right...

this third Acid test focuses also on technologies used on modern, highly interactive websites characteristic of Web 2.0, such as ECMAScript and DOM Level 2. A few tests also concern Scalable Vector Graphics, XML and data: URIs. Only elements from specifications as of 2004 are included

Edit: and by the way, javascript failures preventing a site from working is just bad design and development from the web app developer whereas non-standard handling of standardized layout rules is bad design and development from the browser developer.

I dont, but at the same token dont make stupid statements like all their products are crap. Cause it is baseless statements like this that spread the anti-MS sentiment like that found on this board. Everyone is so focused on what it cant do they never consider what it can do, and when you do you will find how much more superior it is.

I don't remember commenting on the quality of MS's products here but honestly I have no time for their dev technologies as prefer not to be dictated to by Microsoft.

If you are happy to live with their conditions, good for you.

And now I am through derailing this thread.

 

[tristan]

Let me sum up why I back the MS machine.
#12: Services: Live, Live spaces, Maps, XBOX Live, That new astronomy one... the name esacapes me. Again... all talking to each other, easily and seamlessly.

I think you are missing your own point. The idea behind open standards is that many different products from many different vendors will be able to talk to each other, easily and seamlessly - a situation that is somewhat problematic at this point in time.

If Microsoft (continue to) provide you with every product that you want, at a price that you are happy to pay with service levels that you find acceptable, then that that is wonderful news and I hope that they continue to do so for the forseeable future.
You will continue to be a very happy MS customer - irrespective of whether OOXML or any other "proprietary" MS standard is adopted.

Which is why I back them. It makes my life easy. Unitil there is another offering of this magnitude on the table, I will keep backing them. You complain about wanting option... pick one.

Without a fair set of open standards, you will never get another offering of the magnitude that you describe and you will well and truly be stuck with MS. I just hope that their business strategies continue to support yours indefinitely.

 

[Abe]

Let me sum up why I back the MS machine.

#1: ... #12:

This is the problem. You are arguing for MS. We are arguing against OOXML as a standard. It's not about MS (although their track record of manipulating their monopoly counts against them). It's about the fitness of OOXML as a standard and it falls short.

Hell, PDF is a standard, and a pretty crummy one, but it is a standard and its fully defined so that anyone can implement it, as can be seen by the number of PDF viewers that have sprung up over the last couple of years. The same cannot be said for OOXML. That is the whole point here. Standards are about what is good for the community, not what is good for MS.

 

[apogeeza]

Let me sum up why I back the MS machine.
#1: They got a good product.

No they don't. Windows is the crash king.

#2: Every one of their product talks to each other.

No they don't. Office 2007 is not compatible with Office 2003, and Office 2007 set's the internal HTML rendering engine back over 10 years.

#3: They have the broad spectrum of product.

Most of it bought. How much of it actually developed because they're "good"? Hmm. jawellnofine.

#4: A unified dev platform.

To develop unified crashes and unified security bugs, unified memory leaks, "dev once, crash everywhere" - sure, that's one helluva strong selling point.

#5: Documentation.

Have you ever tried using their internal help files? What planet are you on???? Their help is the biggest non-help the world have ever seen.

#6: Community.

So a warm fuzzy feeling is why you back MS? Great, but what good does a warm fuzzy feeling do for you when you are not allowed to fix security holes in a critical app that your company operates on, and the supplier of that app refuses to patch? (Whether you able to or not, is not the point: you are legally restricted from securing your own company, and ensuring your future survival.)

#7: XNA... nuff said.

It's fantastic that you're into fun. Good for you. If that was the only reason to support MS, hey I'd be right there with you, but the world revolves around more than just gaming.

#8: Patterns studio.

Yeah, patterns that repeat crashes with greater consistency or at more random intervals? Who cares anyway.

#9: PC Gaming.. DirectX and the likes.

You do not win any votes by putting gaming down twiice.

#10: VS 2008. It is the best IDE on earth... period.

That's you opinion, and you have clearly showed poor-judgement, so it's invalid. Period.

#11: WCF, WWF, WPF, MS AJAX, LinQ, Silverlight. Need and app? gimme 10 minutes.

Where is MS innovation? It does not exist. Did MS invent Ajax? No. Did they invent anything good for this world? No. Let's look at their track record for a bit:

Did MS invent Hotmail? No, they bought it. Did MS invent Windows on computers? No they stole the concept from Apple Mac (who stole it from Xerox who were using it on their copying devices.) MS didn't like that Netscape Foundation's JavaScript was not an MS product, so lo-and-behold: JScript. Remember that? MS don't like to play second fiddle to Macromedia's Flash (now Adobe Flash) so Silverlight is suppoed to be the biggest thing since sliced bread. How many people even know what it is? Flash has over 97% adoption. Silverlight can not compete. and the list is as seemingly endless as their product range / technology inventory is.

MS hate that anyone is better than them, so they buy and bully in every market they play in - that's why MS is not cool. Sure, they do one thing right: they make things easy. But with that comes a huge problem: the easier it is for users to use, the easier it is for the bad guys to get to the users. MS cannot protect users now because of a legacy of making things easy to use (which has been achieved through an incredibly complicated methodology which is why it is so freeking buggy.)

http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=38

Compare the System Calls IIS jpeg to the System Calls Apache jpeg for a really good visual comparison.

#12: Services: Live, Live spaces, Maps, XBOX Live, ...

Good for you. All your eggs in one basket. Great.
I can have just as much functionality with multiple services from competing service providers, and when Yahoo Maps irks me I can quickly switch to Google Maps. And the more OpenID is adopted, the more one-time logins are available to me too. Your point being? But when you get bored with MS Maps, or when they suddenly decide to start selling your contact details to advertisers, or start charging you for what used to be a free service Who you gonna turn to?

Now you can go on at each one of these and say, but this and but that. Thing is, there is no other company on earth that has been able to deliver the entire package like this. Which is why I back them. It makes my life easy.

I feel sorry for you.

Has your Vista locked you out of your own machine yet? Hmm? If not, carry on. You will soon need a new mouse. And you might want a new keyboard to go with your nice spanking new gaming controls and that nice new bigger HD screen. And when you have finished upgrading you will then find yourself locked out of your own machine with Vista telling you how bad you are, you pirate you! Even though you have bought everything legitimately and it cost you an arm and a leg. But it will cost you your shirt too, to get your name cleared from the blacklist and allow you access to your own machine. Your life will be hell. They will make you feel like a criminal. This centralised place where your life is controlled by one hash number...

Will you still support MS then?

 

[apogeeza]

PS: Something else I forgot that the techheads might find fun, they even got a SDK to write your own languages for the .NET framework. Dont like C#, dont like VB.. fine.. write your own language. Now if that is not the pinicle of free choice what is??

Because you miss the point to FLOSS. Liberty.

With FLOSS you have the freedom to change the Operating System and tailor it to your needs. You can change your Office Suite. You can change the SDK you use. You can change everything about your machine - legally.

You can't do that with anything proprietary. And please don't mistake it for anti-MS sentiment because it isn't. It is anti-proprietary, pure and simple.

Also: Anti-lock-in (and MS is leader of the pro-lock-in camp, specific example: sharepoint. And sharepoint is why I am anti-MS.)

 

[apogeeza]

But when you get bored with MS Maps, or when they suddenly decide to start selling your contact details to advertisers, or start charging you for what used to be a free service Who you gonna turn to?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/28/hotmail_from_outlook_fees/

Microsoft ends free Hotmail access from Outlook

Hotmail users who use Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express clients will now have to pay for the privilege. Users must sign up to either a Hotmail Plus account for $19.95 a year or an MSN Premium account, at $99.95 a year to continue accessing the service from their desktop client.

Microsoft cited abuse by spammers as the reason. Because its email clients are scriptable, Microsoft had been grappling with spammers who automated the sign-up and bulk sending processes. Rivals such as Yahoo! also charge a premium for POP3 access to their email services.

This being Microsoft, things aren't straightforward. Just as Outlook uses common email protocols and obfuscates them in dense wrappings of RPC (Remote Procedure Calls), Hotmail shuns POP3 for a Microsoft implementation of WebDAV, a much richer web publishing protocol for which email is just one application. So, apart from a few clever hacks, client access to Hotmail has been limited to Microsoft email clients. Ximian's Connector software scrapes Exchange Server's WebDAV interface to provide Office interoperability for its Linux desktop, so it's theoretically possible that third party email clients will take up the onerous challenge. It's just very unlikely that they'll see much reward in the task.®

 

[SlappY]

No they don't. Windows is the crash king.

No they don't. Office 2007 is not compatible with Office 2003, and Office 2007 set's the internal HTML rendering engine back over 10 years.

Most of it bought. How much of it actually developed because they're "good"? Hmm. jawellnofine.

To develop unified crashes and unified security bugs, unified memory leaks, "dev once, crash everywhere" - sure, that's one helluva strong selling point.

Have you ever tried using their internal help files? What planet are you on???? Their help is the biggest non-help the world have ever seen.

So a warm fuzzy feeling is why you back MS? Great, but what good does a warm fuzzy feeling do for you when you are not allowed to fix security holes in a critical app that your company operates on, and the supplier of that app refuses to patch? (Whether you able to or not, is not the point: you are legally restricted from securing your own company, and ensuring your future survival.)

It's fantastic that you're into fun. Good for you. If that was the only reason to support MS, hey I'd be right there with you, but the world revolves around more than just gaming.

Yeah, patterns that repeat crashes with greater consistency or at more random intervals? Who cares anyway.

You do not win any votes by putting gaming down twiice.

That's you opinion, and you have clearly showed poor-judgement, so it's invalid. Period.
Where is MS innovation? It does not exist. Did MS invent Ajax? No. Did they invent anything good for this world? No. Let's look at their track record for a bit:

Did MS invent Hotmail? No, they bought it. Did MS invent Windows on computers? No they stole the concept from Apple Mac (who stole it from Xerox who were using it on their copying devices.) MS didn't like that Netscape Foundation's JavaScript was not an MS product, so lo-and-behold: JScript. Remember that? MS don't like to play second fiddle to Macromedia's Flash (now Adobe Flash) so Silverlight is suppoed to be the biggest thing since sliced bread. How many people even know what it is? Flash has over 97% adoption. Silverlight can not compete. and the list is as seemingly endless as their product range / technology inventory is.

MS hate that anyone is better than them, so they buy and bully in every market they play in - that's why MS is not cool. Sure, they do one thing right: they make things easy. But with that comes a huge problem: the easier it is for users to use, the easier it is for the bad guys to get to the users. MS cannot protect users now because of a legacy of making things easy to use (which has been achieved through an incredibly complicated methodology which is why it is so freeking buggy.)

http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=38

Compare the System Calls IIS jpeg to the System Calls Apache jpeg for a really good visual comparison.

Good for you. All your eggs in one basket. Great.
I can have just as much functionality with multiple services from competing service providers, and when Yahoo Maps irks me I can quickly switch to Google Maps. And the more OpenID is adopted, the more one-time logins are available to me too. Your point being? But when you get bored with MS Maps, or when they suddenly decide to start selling your contact details to advertisers, or start charging you for what used to be a free service Who you gonna turn to?

I feel sorry for you.

Has your Vista locked you out of your own machine yet? Hmm? If not, carry on. You will soon need a new mouse. And you might want a new keyboard to go with your nice spanking new gaming controls and that nice new bigger HD screen. And when you have finished upgrading you will then find yourself locked out of your own machine with Vista telling you how bad you are, you pirate you! Even though you have bought everything legitimately and it cost you an arm and a leg. But it will cost you your shirt too, to get your name cleared from the blacklist and allow you access to your own machine. Your life will be hell. They will make you feel like a criminal. This centralised place where your life is controlled by one hash number...

Will you still support MS then?

OK, you are sprouting crap.

"Windows is the crash king" So you are imlplying the other dont crash. I got a Mr Mac Luva sitting next to me here who runs the latest G5 or whateva it is. His OS crashes a lot more than mine, and he is running standard apps. Stop living in a dream world.

#1: How the hell is something sposed to support forward compatibility when develop 4 years apart? They cant see into the future. Moronic Statement #1.

#2: They saw a business opertunity and took it. This happens in every business around the world. Moronic statement #2.

#3: If you cant see why every vendor on earth is going for a unified platform then you really should not be in this thread. Moronic statement #3

#4: Yes I have, and find them very helpful and to the point. Millions of others find the same. Dont show your own ignorance by telling everyone you cant work a help file.

#5: I meant community as in support, not as in big group hug. Again showing you dont know what you are bashin on about.

#6: It is one of several points on my list. You obviously dont know what XNA is... go look it up.

#7: Patterns is a globally accepted concept in software development. If you dont know this then again you are merely highlighting your ignorance.

#8: If you dont know the difference between DirectX and XNA and see these as a single point, then again you are showing your ignornace.

#9: Your statement is as subjective as mine. If you disagree please provide a referrence to an IDE with more features than VS2008. You will be hard pressed to find one.

#10: Again you show you lack of knowledge if you dont know the difference betw pure AJAX and MS AJAX. MS AJAX is a platform, AJAX is a technology (which has been around for many years) Why dont you also add that MS didnt invent XML so they cant use it. Muppet!

You also seem to think that no one is allowed to use something unless they created it. Ferrari didnt invent the car... they simply perfected it.

Your guys arguments are getting pretty lame. I put up a list of things I enjoy about MS and you get all angry. Put one of the clever people back on who can actually discuss this stuff, like Icyrus and Nod...at least they got an ear to the ground. Mom always warned me to never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

<thread derailment>
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/05/23/windows_home_server_public_beta/

Microsoft is looking for Windows Home Server guinea pigs to test a public beta of a patch to a major corruption bug that has blighted the product since late last year.

The bug, which corrupts data on a number of well-known Microsoft and third-party apps when the programs are used to edit or transfer files in the firm’s latest server operating system for the low-end, home user market, first reared its ugly head in December.

In March, the software giant was forced to admit that it wouldn’t deliver a fix which affects apps that include Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Money 2007, Intuit QuickBooks and BitTorrent client uTorrent, until June at the earliest.

Now, ahead of that planned patch release, which it has dubbed “Power Pack 1”, Redmond is looking for [-]crazy fools[/-] volunteers to tinker with the beta.

The outcome of that test will be crucial in determining whether Microsoft is indeed ready to pump out the data corruption bug fix next month. In the meantime, it dished up to customers a classic slice of fuzzy MS speak:

“Microsoft is preparing to launch a beta of the software update in early June, and although a date for a final release remains unknown, Microsoft promises to ‘deliver a fix of the highest quality’.”

Anyone willing to have a fiddle with the public beta can find out more here. Remember, if you are planning to get your hands dirty, be sure to take a backup of the system first. ®

</thread derailment>

Nah, I'll stick to my free Linux copy, never lost any data yet.

 

[noxibox]

The fact that the OOXML standard is a lot more complicated than the ODF standard is proof that ODF doesn't support many features that is supported by OOXML.

It does not necessarily mean that. It may be that OOXML is an overly complex mess that no-one, Microsoft included, will be able to implement in a manner that it behaves identically in all applications. Maybe OOXML is simply over-engineered.

 

[noxibox]

No they don't. Windows is the crash king.

I don't agree. I've rarely seen Windows 2000, XP or Vista crash. I have seen Linux and OSX go down a similar number of times. The Windows systems all share some underlying flaws - one in particular being the registry which is complex and prone to becoming a mess that cannot be easily fixed, another their ridiculous inability to manage disk IO so it does not impact user interaction.

 

[noxibox]

#5: Documentation.

Their documentation has historically been horrible. They also had a nasty habit of changing API behaviour without documenting it. Their documentation and their attitude to it seems to have been improving.

However my experience has been that the open source tools are no better and sometimes the attitude of the developers of those tools makes them their own worst enemy. And having to download twenty things to get going is not endearing.

#2: Every one of their product talks to each other.

Various versions of Office are not compatible. OneNote was not properly integrated in Office 2003.

To boot the release a free edition of all their software for enthusiasts

You mean like the crippled Visual Studio Express? No add-ins, not even free ones.

Obviously you know nothing of software development since if you did you would know that it is always good to have the details of what you are developing ironed out before you deliver the product.

This is something Microsoft has typically not done.

 

[apogeeza]

OK, you are sprouting crap.

"Windows is the crash king" So you are imlplying the other dont crash.

Clearly you can't read. I am implying exactly what I have typed: Windows is the crash king.

#1: How the hell is something sposed to support forward compatibility when develop 4 years apart? They cant see into the future. Moronic Statement #1.

Backward compatibility. Why should MS Office 2003 have to be forward compatible with 2007? Why can't MS Office 2007 look back to MS Office 2003?

#2: They saw a business opertunity and took it. This happens in every business around the world. Moronic statement #2.

You're missing the point: MS do not innovate well, they renovate well. If that's their business strategy, then good for them. But that does not mean they deserve any respect for having more money than a competitor, buying said technology, then squashing the better tech ...

#3: If you cant see why every vendor on earth is going for a unified platform then you really should not be in this thread. Moronic statement #3

This thread is not about a unified platform, nor are every vendor on earth striving for a unified platform.

What we are striving towards is interoperability. A term completely foreign to MS.

Having OOXML challenged as the de facto document format for SA Government files, (which are publicly accessible from any OS, with any Office editor,) is most certainly well within the mandate of the SABS and Government.

OOXML is not the right format. To date, none are. But we can not have MS forcing it's will on the end-user just because it has the money to buy the ISO vote and corrupt the ISO process.

I for one would rather wait a bit longer for true interoperability than have OOXML forced on me.

#4: Yes I have, and find them very helpful and to the point.

Good for you. However, their help files are not as completely comprehensive as you might think they are. MS help files have never been a truly great resource for tech support. If you find them useful, good for you. But I sure hope you are not in tech support ...

#5: I meant community as in support, not as in big group hug. Again showing you dont know what you are bashin on about.

That's exactly what I was referring to. Support. The nice fuzzy feeling you get from knowing you're not alone with this problem. The FLOSS community support is extremely active.

You can not turn to the proprietary community for support, when the law restricts you from even trying to recompile your app to achieve new requirements. But if you had built the system on FLOSS, you can change the app do do the task required, and you can turn the the FLOSS community for support should things go wrong. That, is the difference between proprietary systems and FLOSS systems. But if you like MS because of the community - good for you.

#10: MS AJAX is a platform,

Great, you got me. I know nothing about MS AJAX. ... so shoot me.

You also seem to think that no one is allowed to use something unless they created it.

Again, you missed the point. Innovation. How much of that actually exists at MS? Very little.

And to get back to the thread: Interoperability. They did not invent that concept either, but now with OOXML and fast-tracking it through the ISO system, MS are again trying to change and monopolise how the world works and dictate what formats will be used. How can MS even hope to achieve interoperability with the rest of the world in an open standard file format, (extending even to other platforms,) when they can not achieve interoperability with their own products on their own platforms using their own proprietary file formats?

To my knowledge, they have not even demonstrated a method to achieve such interoperability across all major suites and all major platforms... Then there is the backward compatibility question with older versions of the suites and older OSes too and hardware performance. But that's a whole different bucket of worms to which I would expect MS to say: they will just have to upgrade.

 

[Nod]

On ArsTechnica there is a nice piece on MS and their mistakes w.r.t. win32, .net, etc.

 

[nk1]

Now, ahead of that planned path release, which it has dubbed “Power Pack 1”, Redmond is looking for [-]crazy fools[/-] volunteers to tinker with the beta.

LOL, anyways good to see articles like this that at least try to explain the issues with fast tracking the ratification. Respect to our own SABS for having the courage to stand up.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39424187,00.htm?r=1

 

[apogeeza]

I don't agree. I've rarely seen Windows 2000, XP or Vista crash. I have seen Linux and OSX go down a similar number of times. The Windows systems all share some underlying flaws - one in particular being the registry which is complex and prone to becoming a mess that cannot be easily fixed, another their ridiculous inability to manage disk IO so it does not impact user interaction.

Yes I have heard of a few lucky people that don't have problems with Win, but if that golden spoon can be granted to a few, why not to all?

Although I myself do not use Vista, but at the office, there are 4 infected laptops. You are clearly lucky with your Vista experience, the ladies at the front with their laptops are not. They can not print to the network printer because Vista drivers are not available for a R300,000.00 printer. When they use the wireless mouse that came with the laptops, the one laptop just hangs and another gets the blue screen of death. They have learned to use the touch pad - that seems to work. Their wireless networking often goes down.

My own XP machine has to be booted 3-5 times before a successful login to Windows is possible - every day. If I do get a a day when I boot into Win first time, that is surely a lucky day for me.

My Linux experience on the other hand is a lot more pleasant: 5 Linux machines, yes the apps do crash from time to time, even X Windows itself crashes from time to time, but a simple Ctrl+Alt+Backspace and I restart X --- but the kernel has never crashed ever on any of my machines.

With a Win machine, kernel crashes are far more frequent - even on Vista.