From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 07:16 EDT From: SAHARBAUGH@ROO.FIT.EDU Subject: annual "crap-for-brains software" posting Message-ID: <9305111124.AA08521@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> List-Id: 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