Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Ell]

Jon S Anthony (jsa@alexandria.organon.com) wrote:
: In article <34059D8A.3F3B7FA4@brightwood.com> "Brett J. Stonier" <bretts@brightwood.com> writes:
: 
: > Now, how about an example of superior technology that won out?  Take the
: > Japanese car manufacturers of the 80s.  Did they attack the U.S. car
: > industry?  I'm not an expert on this, but I don't think they did.  They
: > made superior cars and sold them at a reasonable cost.  And they made a
: > huge dent in the U.S. car industry, knocking them off their throne of
: > dominance.  So, it seems to be possible to take the high road and still
: > win out.
 
: This is the _only_ way to win out in the end.  It may well be that
: this won't be sufficient, but anything else is a sure-fire elixer for
: absolute failure for the reasons you cite.

No it isn't.  You can win with an inferior product due to other factors.
The overwhelming evidence of which some refuse to accept.

: In this particular case
: you site, I happen to know that indeed there were no such attacks.

I can remember the Japanese automakers hitting the US ones hard in the
'70's and '80's on quality, and mileage.  I don't know how much this
helped them, but they did it.
 
: The main reason why this might not be enough is two fold:
: 
: 1) there needs to be "enough of a win"

Again, an inferior product can "win" due to factors other than the those
inherent in the products being compared.
 
: 2) the _customer_ needs to twig that there is such a win.

Often for the _customer_ to "twig" things, the customer's eyes and ears
need to be opened.  This the Japanese automakers did freely.

: By 2) I don't mean the _manufacturer_ (coder, whatever), but the "end
: user".

That is what I mean also.

Elliott
-- 
"The domain object model is the foundation of OOD."
"We should seek out proven optimal practices and use them."
See SW Modeller vs SW Pragmatist Central: http://www.access.digex.net/~ell

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Brett J. Stonier]

Ell wrote:

> No it isn't.  You can win with an inferior product due to other
> factors.
> The overwhelming evidence of which some refuse to accept.

Elliot -

You continue to miss the point.  Nobody is saying that inferior products
can't win out over better ones; look at Microsoft, for god's sake!  But,
when this happens, you can usually find marketing or other mistakes that
were made by the better technology providers.

This "low road" method of runner-up marketing is a mistake for Eiffel
proponents, IMHO, just as it has failed to help other "runner-ups" in
other industrys to gain the dominance they seek.  At this point, its
fueling a self-fulfilling prophecy of obsolesence.  Learn from these
other guys mistakes, and market Eiffel right!

Brett S.
http://www.mtjeff.com/~calvin/devhbook

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Jon S Anthony]

In article <5u5m5b$7q6$1@news2.digex.net> ell@access1.digex.net (Ell) writes:

> : > Now, how about an example of superior technology that won out?  Take the
> : > Japanese car manufacturers of the 80s.  Did they attack the U.S. car
> : > industry?  I'm not an expert on this, but I don't think they did.  They
> : > made superior cars and sold them at a reasonable cost.  And they made a
> : > huge dent in the U.S. car industry, knocking them off their throne of
> : > dominance.  So, it seems to be possible to take the high road and still
> : > win out.
>  
> : This is the _only_ way to win out in the end.  It may well be that
> : this won't be sufficient, but anything else is a sure-fire elixer for
> : absolute failure for the reasons you cite.
> 
> No it isn't.  You can win with an inferior product due to other factors.
> The overwhelming evidence of which some refuse to accept.

Ell, I meant (was replying to) the idea of a superior product's
possibility of "winning out".  We all know that inferior things often
win out.

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
OMI, Belmont, MA 02178, 617.484.3383 
"Nightmares - Ha!  The way my life's been going lately,
 Who'd notice?"  -- Londo Mollari

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Robert Dewar]

Ell said

<<No it isn't.  You can win with an inferior product due to other factors.
The overwhelming evidence of which some refuse to accept.>>

No you can't win with an inferior product, winning or success with products
is how superiority is measured.

The trouble is that technical people tend to think that wizz-bang technical
features are what is important. No doubt the Sony guys working on Beta
really thought that image quality was the most important factor -- it was
of course NOT true, and the longer playing time of VHS was what consumers
wanted.

Technical people are always sitting around grumbling that consumers don
t make the "right" choice, but usually such grumbling is just an expression
of incompetence in their ability to figure out what is important.

There are many reasons people buy product A over product B. They prefer
a large company (which tends to get reflected by advertising clout), they
like pretty packaging, they like being sure it will still be around a while
from now, they don't want to feel they are experimenting etc etc etc. The
fact that some technie thinks that super feature X is what is important
is pretty irrelevant.

I saw an interview with one of the guys from the MIT Media lab a few years
ago, saying that he thought that HDTV was completely mis-directed. His
question: "Ask someone on the street what is wrong with TV, they will not
say 'lack of definition'". I always remember this, because I thought it
was an excellent lesson in not focussing on technical excellence.

This certainly applies in the field of computer programming languages.

The mere fact that language X is superior to language Y is certainly not
enough. The issues of continued support are critical. And indeed the
effort in Ada 95 to concentrate on providing effective interfacing to
other languages, something almost completely missing in most other
languages, reflects the understanding that being able to interface to
existing software components written in other languages is crucial.

Often as CEO of ACT, I find that my most important task is to convince
customers not that Ada is superior, they know that, but rather that
they can choose Ada and be sure that support for Ada will be around in
the future. Indeed our entire business plan at ACT is aimed at ensuring
that this is the case. We concentrate entirely on Ada, and we intend
to maintain a small low-overhead operation, allying ourselves with
various tool producing companies, and working on making GNAT easy
to deal with for the tool manufacturers. We believe that this is a
convincing strategy for ensuring that the Ada technology, superior
from a narrow language point of view, is also superior in other terms
that may in the long run be equally important.

Actually the entire free software approach is valuable here. We don't make
our money by charging an arm and a leg up front, instead we are building
are business by gathering customers who are interested in long term
maintenance.

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Jay Martin]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Ell said
> 
> <<No it isn't.  You can win with an inferior product due to other factors.
> The overwhelming evidence of which some refuse to accept.>>
> 
> No you can't win with an inferior product, winning or success with products
> is how superiority is measured.
> 
> The trouble is that technical people tend to think that wizz-bang technical
> features are what is important. No doubt the Sony guys working on Beta
> really thought that image quality was the most important factor -- it was
> of course NOT true, and the longer playing time of VHS was what consumers
> wanted.
> 
> Technical people are always sitting around grumbling that consumers don
> t make the "right" choice, but usually such grumbling is just an expression
> of incompetence in their ability to figure out what is important.
> 
> There are many reasons people buy product A over product B. They prefer
> a large company (which tends to get reflected by advertising clout), they
> like pretty packaging, they like being sure it will still be around a while
> from now, they don't want to feel they are experimenting etc etc etc. The
> fact that some technie thinks that super feature X is what is important
> is pretty irrelevant.

I wish I had such "faith" in the rationality of human
beings.  Of course when you hear: "We don't need no 
stinkin language designed by some military bureaucracy"....
:-)

Jay

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Patrick Doyle]

In article <dewar.872872744@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Ell said
>
><<No it isn't.  You can win with an inferior product due to other factors.
>The overwhelming evidence of which some refuse to accept.>>
>
>No you can't win with an inferior product, winning or success with products
>is how superiority is measured.

  I disagree.  Superiority is subjective; success is due to marketing.

  If you don't think this is the case, then you have more faith in the
average consumer's IQ then I do.

 -PD
-- 
--
Patrick Doyle
doylep@ecf.utoronto.ca

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Jay Martin]

Patrick Doyle wrote:
> 
> In article <dewar.872872744@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >Ell said
> >
> ><<No it isn't.  You can win with an inferior product due to other factors.
> >The overwhelming evidence of which some refuse to accept.>>
> >
> >No you can't win with an inferior product, winning or success with products
> >is how superiority is measured.
> 
>   I disagree.  Superiority is subjective; success is due to marketing.
> 
>   If you don't think this is the case, then you have more faith in the
> average consumer's IQ then I do.

Fool! You are wrong by Robert Dewars definition!

"A winning or successful product is "superior". 

Proof by contradiction:
Suppose you have "inferior" product that is "successful". But by the above
axiom, the product must be "superior" and not "inferior" (contradition).
 
QED. 

Jay

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Joachim Durchholz]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Ell said
> 
> <<No it isn't.  You can win with an inferior product due to other
> factors.
> The overwhelming evidence of which some refuse to accept.>>
> 
> No you can't win with an inferior product, winning or success with
> products
> is how superiority is measured.
> 
> The trouble is that technical people tend to think that wizz-bang
> technical
> features are what is important.

Still there are cases where an inferior product wins.
1) When what the consumer perceives as superior is actually inferior,
but the consumer doesn't notice before buying it. (Instability and
configuration hassles of Windows 3.x vs. Macintosh)
2) When what the consumer perceives as inferior never hits the market
because the market entry costs are too high, so the superior product can
never prove its quality. (MS-DOS vs. Eumel)
3) When a product is superior for a large partial market but inferior
for many niches, but the niche markets are too small to support a
separate development effort.
4) Customers don't know about better alternatives because the
alternatives are restriced to niches. (Windows NT vs. QNX)

Classical market theories don't work too well in practice, and they work
even less than that for software, for two reasons:
1) Compared to other products, software production costs have an unusual
structure:
Market entry (creating the software to be sold) is exceedingly high.
Production cost (copying the software for distribution) is near zero.
Distribution and marketing costs seem to be about normal.
The usual market theories assume products where the production cost is
relevant (to the least).
2) Software products are highly interdependent (or can easily be made
so). A market leader can improve his position by making his software
incompatible with products from other vendors, locking the customers
into his software zoo. (IBM did and does this, Microsoft started this no
long ago.)

> I saw an interview with one of the guys from the MIT Media lab a few
> years
> ago, saying that he thought that HDTV was completely mis-directed. His
> question: "Ask someone on the street what is wrong with TV, they will
> not
> say 'lack of definition'". I always remember this, because I thought
> it
> was an excellent lesson in not focussing on technical excellence.

Hmm... HDTV is what we'll get here in Europe. I remember there was some
conflict between European and US industries about which standard to use.
Don't tell me it has anything to do with the customers' desires - it's
more a question which company with what invention has its main sales
areas where.

Regards,
Joachim
-- 
Please don't send unsolicited ads.

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Paul Johnson]

In article <dewar.872872744@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu says...

>No you can't win with an inferior product, winning or success with products
>is how superiority is measured.

Careful: you are getting very close to defining "superiority" by success
in the market place, and then arguing that the consumers always make
the right choice because they always choose superior products.

I think it is quite reasonable to assert that "technical" superiority is
a real concept, and that it is separate from market success.  Conflating
these two concepts is dangerous.

Technical superiority is not just a matter of having gee-whiz features,
it is a matter of doing a better job.

Paul.

-- 
Paul Johnson            | GEC-Marconi Ltd is not responsible for my opinions. |
+44 1245 242244         +-----------+-----------------------------------------+
Work: <paul.johnson@gecm.com>       | You are lost in a twisty maze of little
Home: <Paul@treetop.demon.co.uk>    | standards, all different.

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Robert Dewar]

Paul says

<<Technical superiority is not just a matter of having gee-whiz features,
it is a matter of doing a better job.>>

Sure, but who judges what is a better job. The answer is that the only
person who can judge is the consumer. The VHS vs Beta example is a good
one from this point of view. The tecnical folks at Sony thought that
image quality was *the* important technical quality. But they were wrong,
and they paid for their mistake. In fact playing time was much more
important to the public.

Now some techie may say "stupid public, they don't know what is important",
but it is such misjudgments by technical people on what is important that
leaves quite a trail of business disasters behind.

An interesting case is gathering steam now, there is a question of whether
the new digital TV transmission capability should be used for HDTV, or
more conventional channels. It is beginning to look more and more as though
the public and the hence the networks, prefer more conventional channels.

Now, no doubt some technical folks will get most upset that as a result
the wondrous x by y resolution of HDTV will never see the light of day,
but all this shows, if it happens, is that maybe picture quality is not
so important as other considerations -- a lesson that tecnical folk
*should* have learned from Beta vs VHS, but unfortunately did not (which
is why we keep getting this example misquoted as an example where technical
superiority did not win out).

And, going back to your definition, what does "doing a better job" mean?
Who judges this?

For example, given two VCR's, one with amazing new features, and the other
with solid reliability, which is doing the better job.

For me, I would far rather rely on the consumer to make the decision of
what features are or are not important and thus constitute the basis
of answering this question!

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Jeff Kotula]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> Paul says
>
> <<Technical superiority is not just a matter of having gee-whiz
> features,
> it is a matter of doing a better job.>>
>
> Sure, but who judges what is a better job. The answer is that the only
>
> person who can judge is the consumer.

[snip]

This is too simplistic. Suppose a company markets and sells a particular

software product for X dollars. Supporting that product must, minimally,

cost less than X. To have a decent profit margin it has to cost way less

than X.

My point is that as a tool, programming languages must be effective
in 1) creating subjectively "good" products, and 2) creating them so
as to be maintainable and supportable at a (objectively) "low" cost.
Technical superiority is related to the latter.

Now, take a recursive step backward and realize that languages are
themselves marketed products and that's where the real confusion
comes from...

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[W. Wesley Groleau x4923]

> No you can't win with an inferior product, winning or success with 
> products is how superiority is measured.
> ..[snip]..
> Often as CEO of ACT, I find that my most important task is to convince
> customers not that Ada is superior, they know that, but rather that
> they can choose Ada and be sure that support 

Since _all_ your products are Ada tools, it's not surprising that 
your customers know (or think) that Ada is superior.  The quote
you were answering, IMHO, referred to the situation where people
claim to be interested in the factors in which Ada's quality is 
proven--yet they continue to cling to the very language that is the
worst in those factors.

Yes, if a product (Beta, Edsel, whatever) is not what people want,
then you can certainly argue that it's not superior.  But when a
product is _exactly_ what they claim to want, yet they won't buy
it, what can you do then?

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Matthew S. Whiting]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Sure, but who judges what is a better job. The answer is that the only
> person who can judge is the consumer. The VHS vs Beta example is a good
> one from this point of view. The tecnical folks at Sony thought that
> image quality was *the* important technical quality. But they were wrong,
> and they paid for their mistake. In fact playing time was much more
> important to the public.
> 
> .
> .
> .
>
> For me, I would far rather rely on the consumer to make the decision of
> what features are or are not important and thus constitute the basis
> of answering this question!

Robert,

FWIW, I agree with you.  Unfortunately, by this success metric, Ada is
pretty much a failure.  Although, one could argue that insufficient time
has passed for the customer's decision to truly and completely be felt! 
:-)

Matt

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Martin Tom Brown]

In article <dewar.873171868@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu "Robert Dewar" writes:

> Paul says
> 
> <<Technical superiority is not just a matter of having gee-whiz features,
> it is a matter of doing a better job.>>
> 
> Sure, but who judges what is a better job. The answer is that the only
> person who can judge is the consumer. The VHS vs Beta example is a good
> one from this point of view. The tecnical folks at Sony thought that
> image quality was *the* important technical quality. But they were wrong,
> and they paid for their mistake. In fact playing time was much more
> important to the public.

The crucial factor which made VHS the business success was that VHS
built up a larger library of prerecorded films available (ie software).
Sony vastly underestimated the importance of software sales involved, 
and VHS courted the film producers so cornering the market.

Once you start judging by market success you get into the hairy zone
where having a marketting department which sounds plausible enough
to get people to buy, and a product cheap enough that it's too much
trouble to complain allows you to have a completely useless "success".
The early phase of pyramid selling scams fits this model.
 
> Now some techie may say "stupid public, they don't know what is important",
> but it is such misjudgments by technical people on what is important that
> leaves quite a trail of business disasters behind.

Misjudgements by marketting people are *far* worse.
I worked on a couple of projects which matched all specifications, 
but failed because the marketting research was entirely spurious.
It only became clear something was desparately wrong when the sales
people tried to sell the finished product.
 
> An interesting case is gathering steam now, there is a question of whether
> the new digital TV transmission capability should be used for HDTV, or
> more conventional channels. It is beginning to look more and more as though
> the public and the hence the networks, prefer more conventional channels.
> 
> Now, no doubt some technical folks will get most upset that as a result
> the wondrous x by y resolution of HDTV will never see the light of day,

You can already watch it on a (slightly) incompatible standard in Japan,
and there were test transmissions at least as early as '93

> And, going back to your definition, what does "doing a better job" mean?
> Who judges this?

The hard line answer is the one which adds most to the bottom line.
It doesn't matter how well it works provided people are satisified,
or at least content enough not to complain (too much).
 
> For example, given two VCR's, one with amazing new features, and the other
> with solid reliability, which is doing the better job.
> 
> For me, I would far rather rely on the consumer to make the decision of
> what features are or are not important and thus constitute the basis
> of answering this question!

Most consumers are actually unable to drive their VCR's :(

There are many variables, people are too easily persuaded by adverts.
Software in particular is *very* vulnerable to creeping featurism,
at the cost of both robustness and useability. ie Bloatware.

Another pending technical superiority (and cost) versus marketting
power and low build cost fight is with the new 56k modem protocols. 
The present score is that one sort of works, and the other doesn't. 
However, it looks like the cheaper one will win.

Regards,
-- 
Martin Brown  <martin@nezumi.demon.co.uk>     __                CIS: 71651,470
Scientific Software Consultancy             /^,,)__/

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Veli-Pekka Nousiainen]

Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote in article
<dewar.873171868@merv>...
> Paul says
> 
> <<Technical superiority is not just a matter of having gee-whiz features,
> it is a matter of doing a better job.>>
> 
> Sure, but who judges what is a better job. The answer is that the only
> person who can judge is the consumer. The VHS vs Beta example is a good
> one from this point of view. The tecnical folks at Sony thought that
> image quality was *the* important technical quality. But they were wrong,
> and they paid for their mistake. In fact playing time was much more
> important to the public.
> 
> Now some techie may say "stupid public, they don't know what is
important",
> but it is such misjudgments by technical people on what is important that
> leaves quite a trail of business disasters behind.
> 
<SNIPPEDY_SNIP>

I can *NOT* choose my programming language as a consumer of those
languages.
 * * * THIS IS NOT A CONSUMER DRIVEN MARKET * * *
It is my father (my boss) who is first persuaded by MicroS*it markedroids
to believe
that you can not possibly choose a niche product no matter how superior it
is.
And man, I tell U, U'd better take this C++ deal, otherwise other bosses
think that
you've lost your marbles and do not wanna that, do U ?!!

So here I was, stuck with pile of what I have known to be (IMO) a pile of
s*it.
I LEFT THE COMPANY and now I am working with the Finnish Eiffel
Distributor.
Call this position heaven first, but I should convince the bosses that:
hey man, whut you're using now, is not gonna work. Ask your workers !!
They'll tell that Eiffel (or Ada or ...) is better. Listen to them and keep
them
happy! Otherwise U may lose your best wo/men...

Whut have happened to me, I sound like a markedroid...
Goodbye real world, welcome virtuality.

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Robert Munck]

On Tue, 02 Sep 1997 18:50:52 -0700, "Matthew S. Whiting"
<whiting@epix.net> wrote:

>Robert Dewar wrote:
>> ...I would far rather rely on the consumer to make the decision
>
>FWIW, I agree with you.  Unfortunately, by this success metric, Ada is
>pretty much a failure.

I don't believe that the consumer/customer is really making
the decision.  Even stipulating that programmers and development
managers prefer C/C++/Java over Ada, the parties who depend
on the long-term reliability, maintainability, adaptability,
and transportability of their products -- upper management,
stockholders and investors, real customers, even future 
programmers and development managers -- are not being
given the facts and then making an informed decision.  In
fact, they don't even know that the issue exists.

Bob Munck
Mill Creek Systems LC  

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Robert Dewar]

Wes says

<<Yes, if a product (Beta, Edsel, whatever) is not what people want,
then you can certainly argue that it's not superior.  But when a
product is _exactly_ what they claim to want, yet they won't buy
it, what can you do then?>>


listen harder!!

This must mean that they have some requirements that they are not
articulating clearly. For example, they prefer software written by
a big company like Microsoft, or they feel more comfortable using
tools that everyone else uses. These are requirements that are
just as important to people as simply looking at technical aspects.

Why do people pay Bayer large amounts of money for simple
chemicals that are available much cheaper from others -- well
they feel more comfortable that they are really getting what
they want with the Bayer name behind it, and of course Bayer
spends large amounts of money convincing people that they feel
this way (which does not necessarily mean that it is in an
inappropriate attitude).

Yes, it's sometimes frustrating that customers seem to make "illogical"
decisions. We often see people using Ada technologies that purely in
technical terms seem clearly inferior to GNAT by any objective analysis.
But there are many reasons for this. Often it is simply a matter of
personal relationships, if you have dealt with person X for a long
time, and trust them, and they have not let you down in the past, then
it's not at all unreasonable to depend more on that trust than on the
current technical state of tools.

Being in business is all about understanding how all these factors work
together and understanding not just the technical needs of customers,
but their complete set of requirements, and identifying the cases where
you can meet that complete set of requirements. We often end up 
suggesting people look at some other Ada technology if we feel that,
considering all the requirements in this general sense, the customer
might be better off with some non-GNAT solution. Of course, being a
service and support company, rather than a "heres-the-shrink-wrapped-
software-take-it-and-pay-for-it" business, we probably work harder to
make sure that we *do* meet all the needs of customers, since we need
them to feel they are getting value for their support contracts!

Anyway, as I say, I understand the frustration, many projects that could
be more successful if written in Ada are not, and those of us who know
that spend a lot of time asking ourselves how that can be fixed. Well
the answer is that it cannot be fixed generally, and the important thing
is to concentrate on an incremental approach, where you make sure that
current use of Ada *is* successful, and rather gradually increase the
awareness of these successes. I don't see any other approach that will
work!

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Darren New]

In article <5ue2sn$32g$2@miranda.gmrc.gecm.com>,
Paul Johnson <paul.johnson@gecm.com> wrote:

>I think it is quite reasonable to assert that "technical" superiority is
>a real concept, and that it is separate from market success.  Conflating
>these two concepts is dangerous.

Especially when the product being considered is a technical product
used by technical people, like a programming language or environment,
CM tools, etc. 

In these cases, I think it's often more of "how fast can I get
acceptably effective" as it is "how effective can I get in a given
time period".  These two can be quite different numbers, especially
when "acceptable effectiveness" is low enough and there's previous
experience involved.  E.g., I can be acceptably effective with K&R C
in many ways, even if spending a month learning Ada would make me 20
times as effective at the technical aspects of my job. In many cases, 
these types of decisions are made by default, or by managers also
considering the costs of tools without considering the costs of lack of
productivity from cheaper tools.

  --Darren

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Robert Dewar]

Matthew says

<<FWIW, I agree with you.  Unfortunately, by this success metric, Ada is
pretty much a failure.  Although, one could argue that insufficient time
has passed for the customer's decision to truly and completely be felt!>>

Not at all, do not equate success with market domination. Rolls Royce does
not sit around thinking they are a failure because they have only a sliver
of the market. Now sure they would like to sell more cars, but their goal
is to increase that sliver, not nudge out GM and Toyota!

Success for Ada is measured the same way. Many projects are highly successful
using Ada, and it has a significant sliver of users who are convinced that
they have found the Rolls Royce of programming language technology for their
needs, and hopefully these days not at Rolls Royce prices.

To increase the success of Ada, you want to focus on increasing the sliver,
don't spend time moaning over the fact that more copies of Visual C++ are
sold -- it's not a productive way to spend your time!

happens too often to call it historic

[W. Wesley Groleau x4923]

> <<Yes, if a product (Beta, Edsel, whatever) is not what people want,
> then you can certainly argue that it's not superior.  But when a
> product is _exactly_ what they claim to want, yet they won't buy
> it, what can you do then?>>
> 
> listen harder!!
> This must mean that they have some requirements that they are not
> articulating clearly. 

Taking your advice, I think those unarticulated  wants  are
1. I want to believe that <tool/product/language> is always the most
   <reliable/low-cost/other attribute> choice for such things.
2. I do NOT want to see or hear any sort of studies that might
   threaten that belief.

And yes, there are people who would put Ada or Eiffel in the first
set of brackets.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>An interesting case is gathering steam now, there is a question of whether
>the new digital TV transmission capability should be used for HDTV, or
>more conventional channels. It is beginning to look more and more as though
>the public and the hence the networks, prefer more conventional channels.

How has public opinion actually been obtained about this?

One thing sticks in my craw:  surveys in Australia, going back 100 years,
have shown that what people _want_ in the media (the newspapers 100 years
ago, TV nowadays) is science/medicine/technology, commerce/politics, and
sport, IN THAT ORDER, with quite a wide gap between the >50% who want science
stories and the <50% who want sport.  What we *get* is more and more and more
sport.  I believe British surveys show much the same order of preference,
with much the same total disregard of user preference in what actually gets
shown.

Ok, the source of my information about such surveys is New Scientist
magazine, which may be biassed!  But I well remember hearing on New
Zealand radio some 20 years ago that more people in New Zealand (then
famous as the land of "Rugby, Racing, and Beer") actually _went_ to
museums and art galleries than went to sports events.

Quite recently, in New Zealand, the "provincial" network was shut down.
The plan was to replace it with a channel devoted to ``music'' for teenagers,
a group who I believe are already well served in that regard.  That was not
_audience_ preference, it was _advertiser_ preference.

So is it really *the public* who want more conventional channels, or
is it *the advertisers*?  And if it is the public, how many of them who
have been asked for their preference have actually _seen_ HDTV?  (For
comparison, many of the people who ``choose'' PCs have never actually
_seen_ a Macintosh, and certainly have never used one.  And many of the
people who ``choose'' Windows have never seen NextStep.  And so on.)

>For me, I would far rather rely on the consumer to make the decision of
>what features are or are not important and thus constitute the basis
>of answering this question!

This is of course the point of usability engineering.  But I am not very
happy about relying on people to make decisions about features they have
never had a chance to evaluate.

-- 
Unsolicited commercial E-mail to this account is prohibited; see section 76E
of the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914 as amended by the Crimes Legislation
Amendment Act No 108 of 1989.  Maximum penalty:  10 years in gaol.
Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok; RMIT Comp.Sci.

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Mark S. Hathaway]

> In article <5v0kta$jdb$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:

>> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

>>An interesting case is gathering steam now, there is a question of whether
>>the new digital TV transmission capability should be used for HDTV, or
>>more conventional channels. It is beginning to look more and more as though
>>the public and the hence the networks, prefer more conventional channels.
 
> How has public opinion actually been obtained about this?
> 
> One thing sticks in my craw:  surveys in Australia, going back 100 years,
> have shown that what people _want_ in the media (the newspapers 100 years
> ago, TV nowadays) is science/medicine/technology, commerce/politics, and
> sport, IN THAT ORDER, with quite a wide gap between the >50% who want science
> stories and the <50% who want sport.  What we *get* is more and more and more
> sport.  I believe British surveys show much the same order of preference,
> with much the same total disregard of user preference in what actually gets
> shown.
>...
> So is it really *the public* who want more conventional channels, or
> is it *the advertisers*?  And if it is the public, how many of them who
> have been asked for their preference have actually _seen_ HDTV?  (For
> comparison, many of the people who ``choose'' PCs have never actually
> _seen_ a Macintosh, and certainly have never used one.  And many of the
> people who ``choose'' Windows have never seen NextStep.  And so on.)

>> For me, I would far rather rely on the consumer to make the decision
>> of what features are or are not important and thus constitute the
>> basis of answering this question!

> This is of course the point of usability engineering.  But I am not very
> happy about relying on people to make decisions about features they have
> never had a chance to evaluate.

It happens all the time. Sometimes the results are good and sometimes
a failure. We have no choice but to make decisions about the unknown.
Take for example the founding fathers of the United States of America.
They fantasized about a new form of government and then argued quite a
lot about it...then they created it. Even today we're still critiquing
some of their decisions/choices.

I agree a lot of decisions are based on incomplete information or
they're given survey questions which "lead" them to answer the way
the surveyer wants. Polling is an art which seeks to not only get
a perfect sample group, but to get the sample group which will then
answer the questions the "appropriate" way.

The fact the rich people of the world will control such things isn't
new. Get used to it.

Among the most worrisome things is topics and events which are never
discussed (meaning the media and politicians don't talk about them).
If something doesn't appear on a poll the you can't give your opinion
and the poll won't reflect any thoughts on that topic. If your
representative in the government doesn't hear from you (with your cash
donation) and doesn't actually have much in common with you (as a human)
then he/she isn't likely to be thinking about the same concerns you
have. If the system doesn't present you an option then it's not likely
you can choose it, can you?

Take for example Michael Moore's television show (TV Nation). There
were apparently several episodes he wanted to air that were stopped.
Some advertisers were offended by his "message" and, in the end, this
lead to his whole show disappearing.

The "establishment" most often shows it's stodgy side when a "movement"
tries to enforce a change which the establishment hadn't offered. The
"civil rights" movement was one such "cause". The "ending of the Vietnam
War" was another.

Could you imagine the angst the powerful people of the "Western world"
would feel if a movement to overturn our republics in favor of a true
democratic type of governing were to occur. Their power would be
threatened and they wouldn't like it.

But, these problems won't appear for us to consider. They're not
offered-up to us to choose. They don't enter the minds of many people.
A movement isn't likely to begin if the idea(s) don't enter the minds
of some people.

Whatever the movement (civil rights, equal rights, gay rights,
environmental protection, nuclear-free society, worker rights, etc.)
the establishment didn't propose it and does oppose it.

Same as it ever was...

                                     Mark S. Hathaway

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Tim Ottinger]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> No you can't win with an inferior product, winning or success with
> products
> is how superiority is measured.

I think this is a sad statement. Is the ability to generate revenue the
only kind of superiority?

For a company banking on a product, that's the "most important thing",
granted.

It leads us to think that only market leaders are of value to us. By
this statement, we should never have left the Z80-CPU CP/M machines. One
time, the PC was just a new idea. Likewise the Mac. Once there was no
UNIX market, so we should have stayed with the mainframes.

It leads us to think that there is nothing valuable about products which
did not win market share because of poor packaging or marketing.  In
fact, it seems to "prove" that all research projects are inferior, and
therefore invalid, because they're not focused on generating revenue,
but on developing technically-superior solutions. But research is very
valuable. It leads to new generations of revenue-producing products.

Technical superiority and market dominance are clearly not the same
thing. They're not even clearly related.  No product has ever failed
because it was built well. Some have succeeded even though they weren't.

Blaming fitness-to-market problems on engineers is often also futile,
because most engineers receive their specifications from marketing
departments, and do not invent them for themselves. Also, engineers tend
not to participate in the success of their products in any way (other
than continuing to draw the same paycheck because the company doesn't go
under). They often have neither a say in the product direction, nor a
stake in the game, nor the opportunity to meet real users.

A business seems to me to have to provide a well-balanced compromise
between concerns. Inappropriate focus on one concern to the exclusion of
the other seems to be a bad idea. But not because the thing you focused
on was unimportant. Rather because you should have doneone, without
forsaking the other.

> [...]
> I saw an interview with one of the guys from the MIT Media lab a few
> yearsago, saying that he thought that HDTV was completely
> mis-directed. His question: "Ask someone on the street what is wrong
> with TV, they will not say 'lack of definition'". I always remember
> this, because I thought it was an excellent lesson in not focussing on
> technical excellence.

Also, Stephen Poplawski (the inventor of the first blender-like device)
was told that there was no market for his device because it didn't help
to capture the soda fountain market. He lost out on millions of
potential dollars when Fred Osius developed and marketed a similar
device with Fred Waring (the Waring Blendor).

Likewise, Elisha Grey was told by the telegraph company that employeed
him that there was no need in the world for voice communications. This
led to his not patenting the device for many months, and Alexander Bell
beating him to the punch.

People don't know what they want. They don't know what they need. Until
a product has hit the market, it's often impossible to tell if it's
really useful and good or not. And useful and good products fail all of
the time due to marketing and management. Superiority is no guarantor of
success, and neither is inferiority. There are too many variables.

After all, a weak, buggy, incomplete, and nearly unusable product I've
heard of is (in a marketing sense) superior to a clean, tight, useful,
complete, and comfortable product I've never heard of. At least by your
definition of marketing success being the definition of success.  This
seems a balancing act.

If superiority is created on full-page, glossy add pages in magazines,
we can all give up design, hack away, and quit testing code now.  ;-)

Tim

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Robert Dewar]

Des said

<<> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> One thing sticks in my craw:  surveys in Australia, going back 100 years,
> have shown that what people _want_ in the media (the newspapers 100 years
> ago, TV nowadays) is science/medicine/technology, commerce/politics, and
> sport, IN THAT ORDER, with quite a wide gap between the >50% who want science
> stories and the <50% who want sport.  What we *get* is more and more and more
> sport.  I believe British surveys show much the same order of preference,
> with much the same total disregard of user preference in what actually gets
> shown.>>


Sorry, Robert Dewar did not write that (nothing sticks in his craw, it is not
a phrase he would use :-) :-)

SO, you need to check attributions here.

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Robert Dewar]

<<Also, Stephen Poplawski (the inventor of the first blender-like device)
was told that there was no market for his device because it didn't help
to capture the soda fountain market. He lost out on millions of
potential dollars when Fred Osius developed and marketed a similar
device with Fred Waring (the Waring Blendor).

Likewise, Elisha Grey was told by the telegraph company that employeed
him that there was no need in the world for voice communications. This
led to his not patenting the device for many months, and Alexander Bell
beating him to the punch.>>

These are all examples that support my point, i.e. products which have
won out in the market place. The PC is another example of a product that
won out in the market place. I do not understand why you are using
examples like this that so clearly support my point as an argument against
it -- confusing!

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Joachim Durchholz]

Tim Ottinger wrote:
> I think this is a sad statement. Is the ability to generate revenue
> the
> only kind of superiority?

Sad or not, this is the way Reality works.
Nobody said that evolution will produce the nicest or most aesthetic
results. The survivors are the meanest, toughest, and most egoistical
traits, moderated only by the fact that cooperation can reap immense
benefits. This is so in biology, and this is so in economy.

> It leads us to think that there is nothing valuable about products
> which
> did not win market share because of poor packaging or marketing.

Commercial success and inherent value have no intrinsic connection. The
only connection that exists is that inherent value can help (and often
does help) for commercial success.
So doing your work well does help in the success of the products you're
working on, but you shouldn't be so megalomaniac to assume that this is
the single criterion for the product to succeed. If that were the case,
all those marketing guys could quit working right now, just as you
proposed to quit testing... the truth is in the middle. All have to do
their work, and your success depends on the efforts of the marketing
guys as well as their success depends on your effort. (I've heard
salesmen complaining about the rubbish they have to force on the
customers... I guess they routinely curse all those software developers
who produce rotten, difficult to use, buggy, and unfit software they
have to sell. And so software engineers and sales people can curse each
other until hell freezes over, and nobody thinks about *improving* the
situation at his shop.)

> In
> fact, it seems to "prove" that all research projects are inferior, and
> therefore invalid, because they're not focused on generating revenue,
> but on developing technically-superior solutions. But research is very
> valuable. It leads to new generations of revenue-producing products.

Yes. But don't expect companies to do much research other than research
resulting in immediate improvements of a product. This company research
can even be harmful to public welfare; I remember having read that the
tobacco companies did something with the acidity of the smoke of their
"light" cigarettes to make them more addictive. I was not surprised to
read about this - it's the sort of thing companies do to improve their
income.
This tendency for egoistical acts is a very common trait in capitalistic
companies (and I think in any other organized endeavour). The only
countermeasure are laws and a culture that puts guilt on such behaviour.
This doesn't totally prevent amoralic behaviour, but it helps.

Sorry, life ain't easy or nice... there were no promises when you
started life, or?

Regards,
Joachim
-- 
Please don't send unsolicited ads.

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Des Kenny]

In article <5v0kta$jdb$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>, ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au
(Richard A. O'Keefe) wrote:

> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> One thing sticks in my craw:  surveys in Australia, going back 100 years,
> have shown that what people _want_ in the media (the newspapers 100 years
> ago, TV nowadays) is science/medicine/technology, commerce/politics, and
> sport, IN THAT ORDER, with quite a wide gap between the >50% who want science
> stories and the <50% who want sport.  What we *get* is more and more and more
> sport.  I believe British surveys show much the same order of preference,
> with much the same total disregard of user preference in what actually gets
> shown.

  Just swallow, or you'll get a very sore throat.
  You could always organise a mass boycott, that would be an interesting 
  empirical test.

> Ok, the source of my information about such surveys is New Scientist
> magazine, which may be biassed!  But I well remember hearing on New
> Zealand radio some 20 years ago that more people in New Zealand (then
> famous as the land of "Rugby, Racing, and Beer") actually _went_ to
> museums and art galleries than went to sports events.

  "We" exported all the Rugby players, Racing has to compete with the "Pokies"
   and the Casinos; and the Beer all gets exported too. "They're drinking
our beer
   over there ...", or so the promoters keep telling us, maybe it's a hoax.

   "We" all drink wine now. Sigh, how the mighty are fallen!
    -- Marlborough Chardonnay, don't you know, if you can afford it or find it,
    -- no doubt it will all be exported too.

   I am working with some people to figure out a way to export our politicians,
   and are having a great deal of trouble finding a market for this
"priceless" commodity.
   -- Any offers? 
   -- Be in before the price falls too low, or how are you to resell them
at a profit?
   -- No, we are not taking swaps!
   

 "We" are currently building yet another national museum in Wellington,
  the largest museum under construction in the world today. More taxpayers
  money, nobody asked me, not that they ever do.

  I recall visiting the Smithsonian in Washington DC
  (and wishing I had another month), the Los Angeles Natural History Museum,
  The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, ... it seems to be a major addiction
alright!

   Maybe "we" just like to look backwards, who knows? Maybe its a national
   disease? I wonder if we learn anything from it all? Still, its fun.
  
  I guess it beats waiting at bus stops and airline terminals.

> Quite recently, in New Zealand, the "provincial" network was shut down.
> The plan was to replace it with a channel devoted to ``music'' for teenagers,
> a group who I believe are already well served in that regard.  That was not
> _audience_ preference, it was _advertiser_ preference.

  Yep, there are media formulas to work out the advertising revenue down to the
  millisecond. It is all very carefully planned and packaged for maximum
marketing
  impact and financial return.

  There is a debate going on now in parliament about reducing advertising
time on "state"
  TV channels;  and we are talking millions of dollars a minute in lost
revenue to the
  "state", the government has gone away to count its pennies.

  You can always vote with your feet, and "persuade" others to do
likewise. Start
  your own radio station. Access Radio started in Wellington several years ago
  to give voice to "the people", of all races, cultures, persuasions,
religions, hobbies, 
  and other bizzare pastimes.

  It is run by "amateurs", in the original sense of the word, and there are now 
  Access Radio locations in all the major cities of the country. You can
hear almost
  every language on earth spoken on Access Radio. We don't have Inuit yet,
  or even any Aboriginee, that I have heard anyway, give it time.
  "Where there's a will..."

  IMO the BBC seems to be one of the few electronic media organisations in the
  world that can consistently produce very high quality big programs year
after year.
  I am not sure why they do it, or how they even get away with it. The
real reasons
  are probably lost in the mists of antiquity -- more museums.
  
 
> So is it really *the public* who want more conventional channels, or
> is it *the advertisers*?  And if it is the public, how many of them who
> have been asked for their preference have actually _seen_ HDTV?  (For
> comparison, many of the people who ``choose'' PCs have never actually
> _seen_ a Macintosh, and certainly have never used one.  And many of the
> people who ``choose'' Windows have never seen NextStep.  And so on.)

  More mass media => more mass persuasion,
  so what's new over the last million years?
  -- he types on his trusty 8 year old Mac II Ci
  -- I must upgrade one of these days when Apple finally decides
  -- which is the right way to the promised land
  -- maybe I'll even get to take a NextStep, ....?
  -- I'll probably use NT, various Unixes, Linux, ..., even QNX, ...
  -- if they are suitable for some project
  -- To use that old phrase from generations of NZ Racing wisdom
  --  "It's horses for courses"

  
> 
> >For me, I would far rather rely on the consumer to make the decision of
> >what features are or are not important and thus constitute the basis
> >of answering this question!

 Chacun a son gout; and there are many gouts, vive la difference!

> This is of course the point of usability engineering.  But I am not very
> happy about relying on people to make decisions about features they have
> never had a chance to evaluate.

People have been doing that forever. Wait for the next leap in human
mental evolution,
it may change; if you are lucky.

> Unsolicited commercial E-mail to this account is prohibited; see section 76E
> of the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914 as amended by the Crimes Legislation
> Amendment Act No 108 of 1989.  Maximum penalty:  10 years in gaol.
> Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok; RMIT Comp.Sci.

I am collecting all this "unsolicited email" for the next BIG museum, in
New Zealand, it will be called the Cyber Junk Yard. I will bequeath it to
future anthropologists, and students of mass psychosis; not to be open
until January 1, 3001; it should keep them busy for a little while.

Regards

Des Kenny

Information Systems Consultant

Email:             dkenny@actrix.gen.nz 
Phone[Cell]:       64 21 610 220
Fax[Modem]:        64 4 476 9237
PO Box[Snail]:     17356, Wellington, New Zealand

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Des Kenny]

In article <1997Sep13.115308.12917@hobbit>, hathawa2@marshall.edu (Mark S.
Hathaway) wrote:


> 
> Whatever the movement (civil rights, equal rights, gay rights,
> environmental protection, nuclear-free society, worker rights, etc.)
> the establishment didn't propose it and does oppose it.
> 
> Same as it ever was...
>

Too true. 

You might even call this the "Law of Social Inertia", to paraphrase
Newton; and it goes back a little while. Here are some more recent,
recorded, examples ...

1. "History" tells us that Pythagoras sentenced his young student Hippasus
to death by
   drowning for unforgiveably discovering "irrational" numbers; and thus
threatening the demise
   of his "master's" great work and reputation.
   -- He was not the first, or the last, "authority" to "eliminate" those
with radical
   -- ideas that might disturb the holy slumber of that great god "Status Quo".

2. The Catholic Church and Gallileo, and Copernicus and so on ...
   -- Not to mention a few other "Religions" and "Powers" over the centuries
   -- To be fair it is not always "Religions" as such that have "sinned"
   -- "Who will rid me of this priest?"
   -- Henry II giving the barely code signal that sanctioned the murder of
Thomas a Becket
   -- in his own cathedral
 

3. Many composers and authors were villified until after their death and then
   were miraculously "discovered" to be "brilliant".



4.  A rather more recent film/docudrama on this same subject:-
    "Manufacturing Consent"
     Producer: Noam Chomsky,
               -- One time linguist and developer of the "Chomsky Grammars"

Regards

Des Kenny

Information Systems Consultant

Email:             dkenny@actrix.gen.nz 
Phone[Cell]:       64 21 610 220
Phone[Home]:       64 4 476 9499
Fax[Modem]:        64 4 476 9237
PO Box[Snail]:     17356, Wellington, New Zealand

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Robert Dewar]

Joachim says

<<Commercial success and inherent value have no intrinsic connection. The
only connection that exists is that inherent value can help (and often
does help) for commercial success.>>

So how do we judge inherent value? To me commercial success is a surer
judge that some smart engineer who thinks he knows more than everyone else!

Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[John English]

Mark S. Hathaway (hathawa2@marshall.edu) wrote:
: Could you imagine the angst the powerful people of the "Western world"
: would feel if a movement to overturn our republics in favor of a true
: democratic type of governing were to occur. Their power would be
: threatened and they wouldn't like it.

I remember someone saying (of Chile) that the establishment was
all in favour of democracy until the wrong party won the election...

---------------------------------------------------------------
 John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
 Senior Lecturer           | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
 Dept. of Computing        | fax: (+44) 1273 642405
 University of Brighton    |
---------------------------------------------------------------