Monday, February 27, 2006
Now this guy can VENT :)
Jake makes a pretty good case here. Common sense has been more or less lost in the stampede towards 'the next cool thing' in software development, as he points out. And he vents well!
Monday, February 13, 2006
Dishonesty? Stupidity? Both?
I found a link to an ad by the sellers of REALBasic:
However, let's go to the land of Oz now, and pretend that it was. WHY would Delphi developers flock to BASIC? Seriously, please, keep the laughter down...I'm asking a good question here. I could maybe see it if they were offering a nice license to a C# tool, but BASIC? Most developers would rather gnaw off their fingers than abandon the cleanness of the ObjectPascal language for any derivative of BASIC. Even a lot of the VB6 guys who got over their anger at MS for dumping them switched to C# rather than swallow another generation of that language.
And from the company angle...if Delphi developers WERE going to jump ship, why would they jump to a non-Microsoft compiler at that point? Why would they go from one small company to another (again, we're in the land of Oz here..). If you got rejected by a small family that couldn't afford to keep you, would you go looking for ANOTHER small family? The whole precept here is absurd, from the ignorant 'terminated' language to another.
I understand the goal of advertising is to draw attention to yourself, but there's a fine line there between drawing attention to yourself and drawing ire. If he wants to position REAL Basic as a Delphi competitor, go ahead...but the only thing that this kind of deceptive advertising and FUD spreading is going to do is tick people off - never a great way to get sales. They better convince me that their tool is better than Delphi, without all the FUD, or they won't get a nickel of MY business...sheesh.
Randy
Following Borland's announcement to exit the development tools business, REAL Software today announced that all Borland Delphi users can receive a free license for REALbasic 2006 for Windows Standard Edition through February 28, 2006.
"REAL Software focuses exclusively on the developer tools market," stated Geoff Perlman, president and CEO of REAL Software. "We understand the stress and concern that plague developers when their development tool is terminated. REALbasic continues to reflect the efforts of our company's sole focus on building the best possible rapid application development tools. We welcome Borland Delphi users to our powerful, object-oriented environment for creating cross-platform software that really works."
My eyes got wide. The blatant dishonesty here is the first thing: "...their development tool is terminated". There are lies, damn lies, and advertising, and apparently these people fall totally into that category. Delphi is NOT terminated. It's going to be sold and developed under a new brand.
However, let's go to the land of Oz now, and pretend that it was. WHY would Delphi developers flock to BASIC? Seriously, please, keep the laughter down...I'm asking a good question here. I could maybe see it if they were offering a nice license to a C# tool, but BASIC? Most developers would rather gnaw off their fingers than abandon the cleanness of the ObjectPascal language for any derivative of BASIC. Even a lot of the VB6 guys who got over their anger at MS for dumping them switched to C# rather than swallow another generation of that language.
And from the company angle...if Delphi developers WERE going to jump ship, why would they jump to a non-Microsoft compiler at that point? Why would they go from one small company to another (again, we're in the land of Oz here..). If you got rejected by a small family that couldn't afford to keep you, would you go looking for ANOTHER small family? The whole precept here is absurd, from the ignorant 'terminated' language to another.
I understand the goal of advertising is to draw attention to yourself, but there's a fine line there between drawing attention to yourself and drawing ire. If he wants to position REAL Basic as a Delphi competitor, go ahead...but the only thing that this kind of deceptive advertising and FUD spreading is going to do is tick people off - never a great way to get sales. They better convince me that their tool is better than Delphi, without all the FUD, or they won't get a nickel of MY business...sheesh.
Randy
Sunday, February 12, 2006
The "duh" award for bad customer support...
My Suggestion for Microsoft OneNote written to Office Online:
Not all of us have tablet PC's that we can draw on. I want to use OneNote as a great whiteboarding application where I can share ideas and code with other programmers. But I need to be able to draw lines, simple shapes, highlight text using TEXT highlight and not just freeform highlight, etc. Right now trying to communicate is very difficult using a shared session.
My Answer from the "MVP":
"Unless you have a Tablet PC or at least a writing tablet you're going to be limited to what you can do with the mouse. That's true of all apps. "
So, apparently the intelligence quota isn't very high to become an MVP. I'm protecting the name of the incompetent who answered this just to keep it from turning personal. However, this is another in a classic case of either NOT reading what I wrote, or just adopting the "defend the product as it is" philosophy of customer support. I made a SUGGESTION, that a few of the simple drawing primitives found in EVERY drawing/diagramming package out there be added to OneNote to make it easier to use for non-tablet users. Instead of saying "hey good idea, I'll send that to the team for consideration" or any kind of acknowledgement that the above features would have made my experience better, I get a statement that is the support equivalent of saying "The earth is round. Thought that might help you." This guy is right out of the Dogbert Technical Support Department.
Apparently MVP at Microsoft now stands for "Most Vacuous People"
FOLLOW UP
Apparently, Microsoft MVP's run in packs. After complaining about the response I got, ANOTHER MVP chimes in with this comment
Score: Common Sense: 2, MVP's: 0
Not all of us have tablet PC's that we can draw on. I want to use OneNote as a great whiteboarding application where I can share ideas and code with other programmers. But I need to be able to draw lines, simple shapes, highlight text using TEXT highlight and not just freeform highlight, etc. Right now trying to communicate is very difficult using a shared session.
My Answer from the "MVP":
"Unless you have a Tablet PC or at least a writing tablet you're going to be limited to what you can do with the mouse. That's true of all apps. "
So, apparently the intelligence quota isn't very high to become an MVP. I'm protecting the name of the incompetent who answered this just to keep it from turning personal. However, this is another in a classic case of either NOT reading what I wrote, or just adopting the "defend the product as it is" philosophy of customer support. I made a SUGGESTION, that a few of the simple drawing primitives found in EVERY drawing/diagramming package out there be added to OneNote to make it easier to use for non-tablet users. Instead of saying "hey good idea, I'll send that to the team for consideration" or any kind of acknowledgement that the above features would have made my experience better, I get a statement that is the support equivalent of saying "The earth is round. Thought that might help you." This guy is right out of the Dogbert Technical Support Department.
Apparently MVP at Microsoft now stands for "Most Vacuous People"
FOLLOW UP
Apparently, Microsoft MVP's run in packs. After complaining about the response I got, ANOTHER MVP chimes in with this comment
Things aren't looking up for the MVP team. The button I clicked to enter my initial comment was "Send a Suggestion to Microsoft" and the top of my post has the topic "Suggestion for Microsoft". However, apparently, our gallant MVP's don't actually READ what they are sent, and are therefore incapable of distinguishing a request for help on what is IN the product, from a customer sincerely desiring something to be ADDED to the product.
As you may have noted by reviewing the posts in this newsgroup (you did, didn't you?), the program currently doesn't have the abilities to do what you're asking. You can check the blogs of Microsoft's Chris Pratley for additional information...
Score: Common Sense: 2, MVP's: 0
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Borland Cuts Out Its Own Heart
Today brings an announcement that was shockingly expected. Yes, you read it right. I think at some point I figured something like this would happen, but it didn't make it any less of a shock to wake up and read that it had actually happened. Borland is going to spin off its IDE business. In medical terms, CEO Tod Nielsen has decided that the way to save the patient was to donate its heart to someone else: really good news for the heart, a little dicey for the patient.
Now, I've read some of the press accounts and commentaries by other people about this. Many of them are written to impress the guys in big boardrooms whose ties have long since cut off any creative blood from reaching their brains. In plain English, the suits think they have ejected those pesky coders once and for all from Borland. Last time I remember this happening was when Apple decided that it had outgrown a certain guy named Steve Jobs and wanted to hire a suit named John Sculley. Everyone knows how well THAT worked out for Apple.
Now Tod Nielsen is fully free to cozy up to his old friends at Microsoft without potential competitive issues getting in the way. He can use Visual Studio and Eclipse as a vehicle to get his ALM offerings in the door with large companies. And maybe it'll work. It's the same mentality that says "maybe the alligator will eat me last". Certainly cozying up to Microsoft and simultaneously trying to make it look like you're Eclipse-friendly CAN work, at least in the short term. On the other hand, by keeping the name "Borland", Tod has ensured another major identity crisis for the company by taking it down the Inprise road again.
In some ways, I'm actually relieved that the IDE's won't have the Borland name, much as that nostalgic part of me sheds a tear for its loss along with everything that the name "Borland" once represented. If I had a nickel for how many times people have said to me "Borland? Are they still around? Didn't they used to make a neat little Pascal compiler?".....
So maybe a change of venue will help the tools get evaluated on their own merits, instead of having the baggage of Borland/Inprise/Visigenics/etc looming over their heads.
As long as Delphi and the other IDE's lived under the Borland name, Borland was NOT going to push them. In this, the Borland executives are right. Delphi developers everywhere have known they were sitting on one on of the best kept secrets in the industry, a RAD IDE that actually let you (gasp) port your Win32 code to .NET, without re-writing it all (someone please get smelling salts for the Visual Basic guy who just passed out. I don't want him missing anything I'm saying here).
So, this is a good thing, at least it will be as long as Borland leaves the marketing folks who have been writing the Delphi ads (what few there were) behind! I think the only fitting punishment for them is to have to market the ALM tools. Meanwhile, the IDE group might actually get under a new company and decide that it's high time someone stood up to Microsoft's Visual Studio and exposed a few of its warts (oops. Are there some of those smelling salts left? The C# guy over there needs a sniff now!) Yes, Microsoft's Visual Studio has its warts. And its only real meaningful competition has been the Borland IDE's. The engineers have done some wonderful things with them, but most of the world is ignorant of them because Borland has relied on guerilla marketing to spread the word. That's not the Borland that used to compete nose to nose with Microsoft without backing down. Some of Borland's ad campaigns in the past were edgy and unafraid, and they captured the free and independent spirits of developers everywhere. Without that presence in the market, Microsoft has pushed a lot of other peoples' technology out the door and made it sound like it was their idea in the first place. My hope is that the new IDE company makes the development and marketing effort to show that we are not all lemmings who bark and clap on cue like trained seals (If you've ever been to a local msdn event, you know what I mean: these people never clap or cheer or otherwise show any sign of being alive unless a) they are thrown t-shirts and other freebies, and b) they are specifically ASKED to ("How about these snippets?? Pretty cool, huh?!" -- Most Borland events were not lacking in actual enthusiasm by people who knew that the presenters GOT IT).
Anyway, right now the Delphi airplane is encountering turbulence. One can look out the window and the wings are bouncing up and down, your coffee won't stay on the tray, and you feel at any minute you might suddenly plunge to your death, no matter how illogical such conclusions are. But then the turbulence passes and you realize it was just an invevitable part of flying.
Delphi and the other Borland IDE's will now be flying free. And we'll all get through this turbulence. Just fasten your seatbelt, order the adult beverage of your choice, take a deep breath, relax, and say to yourself calmly "the plane will not fall out of the sky, the plane will not fall out of the sky..."
Randy
Now, I've read some of the press accounts and commentaries by other people about this. Many of them are written to impress the guys in big boardrooms whose ties have long since cut off any creative blood from reaching their brains. In plain English, the suits think they have ejected those pesky coders once and for all from Borland. Last time I remember this happening was when Apple decided that it had outgrown a certain guy named Steve Jobs and wanted to hire a suit named John Sculley. Everyone knows how well THAT worked out for Apple.
Now Tod Nielsen is fully free to cozy up to his old friends at Microsoft without potential competitive issues getting in the way. He can use Visual Studio and Eclipse as a vehicle to get his ALM offerings in the door with large companies. And maybe it'll work. It's the same mentality that says "maybe the alligator will eat me last". Certainly cozying up to Microsoft and simultaneously trying to make it look like you're Eclipse-friendly CAN work, at least in the short term. On the other hand, by keeping the name "Borland", Tod has ensured another major identity crisis for the company by taking it down the Inprise road again.
In some ways, I'm actually relieved that the IDE's won't have the Borland name, much as that nostalgic part of me sheds a tear for its loss along with everything that the name "Borland" once represented. If I had a nickel for how many times people have said to me "Borland? Are they still around? Didn't they used to make a neat little Pascal compiler?".....
So maybe a change of venue will help the tools get evaluated on their own merits, instead of having the baggage of Borland/Inprise/Visigenics/etc looming over their heads.
As long as Delphi and the other IDE's lived under the Borland name, Borland was NOT going to push them. In this, the Borland executives are right. Delphi developers everywhere have known they were sitting on one on of the best kept secrets in the industry, a RAD IDE that actually let you (gasp) port your Win32 code to .NET, without re-writing it all (someone please get smelling salts for the Visual Basic guy who just passed out. I don't want him missing anything I'm saying here).
So, this is a good thing, at least it will be as long as Borland leaves the marketing folks who have been writing the Delphi ads (what few there were) behind! I think the only fitting punishment for them is to have to market the ALM tools. Meanwhile, the IDE group might actually get under a new company and decide that it's high time someone stood up to Microsoft's Visual Studio and exposed a few of its warts (oops. Are there some of those smelling salts left? The C# guy over there needs a sniff now!) Yes, Microsoft's Visual Studio has its warts. And its only real meaningful competition has been the Borland IDE's. The engineers have done some wonderful things with them, but most of the world is ignorant of them because Borland has relied on guerilla marketing to spread the word. That's not the Borland that used to compete nose to nose with Microsoft without backing down. Some of Borland's ad campaigns in the past were edgy and unafraid, and they captured the free and independent spirits of developers everywhere. Without that presence in the market, Microsoft has pushed a lot of other peoples' technology out the door and made it sound like it was their idea in the first place. My hope is that the new IDE company makes the development and marketing effort to show that we are not all lemmings who bark and clap on cue like trained seals (If you've ever been to a local msdn event, you know what I mean: these people never clap or cheer or otherwise show any sign of being alive unless a) they are thrown t-shirts and other freebies, and b) they are specifically ASKED to ("How about these snippets?? Pretty cool, huh?!"
Anyway, right now the Delphi airplane is encountering turbulence. One can look out the window and the wings are bouncing up and down, your coffee won't stay on the tray, and you feel at any minute you might suddenly plunge to your death, no matter how illogical such conclusions are. But then the turbulence passes and you realize it was just an invevitable part of flying.
Delphi and the other Borland IDE's will now be flying free. And we'll all get through this turbulence. Just fasten your seatbelt, order the adult beverage of your choice, take a deep breath, relax, and say to yourself calmly "the plane will not fall out of the sky, the plane will not fall out of the sky..."
Randy
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