annual "crap-for-brains software" posting

[SAHARBAUGH@ROO.FIT.EDU]

Ted Holden writes:
Having to spend ten times the going rate in both money and time for everything
you ever do will prevent you from doing that.  That's a hell of a good reason
for deep-sixing Ada.



-- 
Ted Holden
HTE

  Well I guess its time for my annual "crap-for-brains software" posting
again.  Each of the many times each workday that the commercial
software in my office fails I think of these postings that scream
"I want cheap software like Microsoft etc. produce".  You may recall
that I have labeled commercial software "crap-for-brains", "What-you-
see-ain't-what-you-get" etc.  Let me recall last week's highlights:
1. Powerpoint shows a vugraph on the screen with the graphic just
where we want it.  It prints it out at least 4 inches down and 2 inches
to the right on the paper copy.  No fixing it, the slide had to be
deleted and redone.
2. McSchedule shows schedule bar fill areas as drawn, solid for
work completed and cross hatched for a class of future activities.
The printed copy shows all solid, one hour before meeting with
customer.
3. Tried some demo software on a PC with windows.  Inserted
diskette in B drive and selected icon to execute a file on that
diskette. ( i don't know the right words here, i'm primarily a
macintosh point and shoot person).  Windows went thru all the
expected moves and then asked me to type in the filename that
i wanted to execute (which i could have done in DOS without 
all that mousing.  The 3 of us present all laughed out loud at
the same time.  Later using windows I wanted to alter a filename
in a window and instead of backspacing it just erased the entire
filename.  Apparently the philosophy of requiring the user to
memorize filenames lives on.
4. The latest powerpont is a cpu hog.  To switch from title
list to slide view and back seems to take on the order of
the expononential of the number of slides.  I suspect that
the title list is built fresh each time using a bubble sort.
We are collecting money to send a copy of Knuth's Sorting
and Searching to the autheors.  In general the software folks
are consuming the increases in cpu power at an alarming
rate, adding fluffy functionality and reducing robustness.

I could go on and on (and often do).  I have not mentioned
the numerous "crashes" where the software "unexpectedly
quits".

So, the bottom line is that software that works well enough to
defend our country costs ten times as much as software that works
well enough for office work.  That's the way it is.  

When will it change? In my opinion not until we all stop sending
checks for upgrades to the richest man in the country.  When
we demand software that works for our offices and homes
then the richest man in the country may consider doing some
engineering, design, test etc. and using a programming
language with a lot of built-in checking like (well you know
what language I mean).
sam harbaugh SAHARBAUGH@ROO.FIT.EDU