August 19, 2013 at 8:59 am
djackson 22568 (8/19/2013)
Eric M Russell (8/19/2013)
It must be daunting for a software vendor like Oracle toNot a fan of Oracle right now. I understand that they no longer develop Java, instead relying on open source programmers. Unfortunately the quality of Java is as bad as it has ever been. Sun, and now Oracle, took a good idea and butchered it in an attempt to displace Microsoft influence on developers. Almost every vendor I work with is dumping Java as quick as they can, having found that they can't provide a working product due to how Oracle is pushing out upgrades that break existing functionality.
My favorite sayng currently is that someone needs to beat the Java developers upside the head with a coffee cup until they figure out how to provide a decent product.
Yeah, in my previous post I was about to contrast Java with Microsoft .NET in terms of stability and bug / security fixes, etc. Of course at this point HTML5 is looking like it may become the dominant software app platform, but .NET rules at least when it comes to desktop apps running on Windows.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
August 19, 2013 at 9:25 am
Eric M Russell (8/19/2013)
djackson 22568 (8/19/2013)
Eric M Russell (8/19/2013)
It must be daunting for a software vendor like Oracle toNot a fan of Oracle right now. I understand that they no longer develop Java, instead relying on open source programmers. Unfortunately the quality of Java is as bad as it has ever been. Sun, and now Oracle, took a good idea and butchered it in an attempt to displace Microsoft influence on developers. Almost every vendor I work with is dumping Java as quick as they can, having found that they can't provide a working product due to how Oracle is pushing out upgrades that break existing functionality.
My favorite sayng currently is that someone needs to beat the Java developers upside the head with a coffee cup until they figure out how to provide a decent product.
Yeah, in my previous post I was about to contrast Java with Microsoft .NET in terms of stability and bug / security fixes, etc. Of course at this point HTML5 is looking like it may become the dominant software app platform, but .NET rules at least when it comes to desktop apps running on Windows.
Our help desk reinstalls Java multiple times a day. Every time I walk by during an install, if the "3 billion devices run Java" screen is up, you can hear them muttering "yeah, and 3 billion devices no longer work!"
Dave
August 19, 2013 at 11:24 am
In one of my favorite Dilbert cartoons, Dogbert says to the boss: 'Before you bought my overpriced, under-performing software, you had all of the power. Now, it's the opposite'. The boss replies: 'How big a fool do you think I am?'. Dogbert says: 'I'll tell you after you sign the platinum support agreement'.
No need to say any more. As mentioned above, Microsoft is head and shoulders above many smaller vendors, especially those with niche products.
August 20, 2013 at 4:09 am
Of course, some users don't help themselves or the rest of us. There are always a small minority who will claim that the issue they are raising is the most important ever even if it is a minor issue to them. This is akin to sending every email with high importance flagged. With emails you begin to ignore the importance flag on emails from someone who always sets them but with product feedback it isn't so obvious and can skew the perceived userbase requirements.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
August 20, 2013 at 7:18 am
Gary Varga (8/20/2013)
Of course, some users don't help themselves or the rest of us. There are always a small minority who will claim that the issue they are raising is the most important ever even if it is a minor issue to them. This is akin to sending every email with high importance flagged. With emails you begin to ignore the importance flag on emails from someone who always sets them but with product feedback it isn't so obvious and can skew the perceived userbase requirements.
I believe that's one benefit of having users vote with dollars; those users who contribute the most financial support to the project, whether via PayPal for shareware or a premium support contract for ISV product, are most likely the users with largest stake in how the software functions. Of course, a large corporate client will want all the obvious bugs fixed just as much as anyone.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
August 20, 2013 at 7:30 am
Eric M Russell (8/20/2013)
Gary Varga (8/20/2013)
Of course, some users don't help themselves or the rest of us. There are always a small minority who will claim that the issue they are raising is the most important ever even if it is a minor issue to them. This is akin to sending every email with high importance flagged. With emails you begin to ignore the importance flag on emails from someone who always sets them but with product feedback it isn't so obvious and can skew the perceived userbase requirements.I believe that's one benefit of having users vote with dollars; those users who contribute the most financial support to the project, whether via PayPal for shareware or a premium support contract for ISV product, are most likely the users with largest stake in how the software functions. Of course, a large corporate client will want all the obvious bugs fixed just as much as anyone.
...depends who in a given organisation gets to cast their vote!!!
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
August 20, 2013 at 7:56 am
Gary Varga (8/20/2013)
Eric M Russell (8/20/2013)
Gary Varga (8/20/2013)
Of course, some users don't help themselves or the rest of us. There are always a small minority who will claim that the issue they are raising is the most important ever even if it is a minor issue to them. This is akin to sending every email with high importance flagged. With emails you begin to ignore the importance flag on emails from someone who always sets them but with product feedback it isn't so obvious and can skew the perceived userbase requirements.I believe that's one benefit of having users vote with dollars; those users who contribute the most financial support to the project, whether via PayPal for shareware or a premium support contract for ISV product, are most likely the users with largest stake in how the software functions. Of course, a large corporate client will want all the obvious bugs fixed just as much as anyone.
...depends who in a given organisation gets to cast their vote!!!
Good point. I'd assume the person casting the vote would be the same who actually signs the check for the yearly support subscription, so from a business (if not a technical) standpoint, it still holds up.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
August 20, 2013 at 8:17 am
Eric M Russell (8/20/2013)
Gary Varga (8/20/2013)
Eric M Russell (8/20/2013)
Gary Varga (8/20/2013)
Of course, some users don't help themselves or the rest of us. There are always a small minority who will claim that the issue they are raising is the most important ever even if it is a minor issue to them. This is akin to sending every email with high importance flagged. With emails you begin to ignore the importance flag on emails from someone who always sets them but with product feedback it isn't so obvious and can skew the perceived userbase requirements.I believe that's one benefit of having users vote with dollars; those users who contribute the most financial support to the project, whether via PayPal for shareware or a premium support contract for ISV product, are most likely the users with largest stake in how the software functions. Of course, a large corporate client will want all the obvious bugs fixed just as much as anyone.
...depends who in a given organisation gets to cast their vote!!!
Good point. I'd assume the person casting the vote would be the same who actually signs the check for the yearly support subscription, so from a business (if not a technical) standpoint, it still holds up.
Not necessarily so. If someone who has the responsibility to cast votes does not have the complete picture they may just vote for their personal pet hate and not necessarily for what is best for the business they represent.
Having said that it would always be the problem under any system.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
August 20, 2013 at 8:54 am
Do they have the largest stake? Or are they just the largest user? The item they request might not even be in use in the majority of their systems.
This is somewhat how it works now. Some features are added because a few large Enterprise customers need them or want them. They are sales drivers, and resources from the SQL team get spent implementing some new feature instead of fixing bugs in existing features or enhancing tooling.
August 20, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Interesting editorial.
I think it's pretty clear that software licensing is an area in which vendors deny any responsibility to provide or do anything to a greater extent than in pretty well any other sales activity, and that's why some software outfits get some pretty strong reactions from their customers. I have the attitude that if a customer reports a bug, it gets fixed (not necessarily instantly, but without extremely long delays) perhaps because most of my time has been with computer manufacturers, and some of the rest running the engineering side of an outfit which managed servers and client computers (to none of which the customer had admin access) on customer premises in order to provide the services we were selling - an both manufacturers (other, apparently, than Apple) and on-site service providers tend to have much more customer-favourable contracts than typical software companies.
Jeff Moden (8/17/2013)
.You also have to consider what a "childish insult" is or is not. If you're on the receiving end of poor product, especially product that was working very well and has been changed for the worse, then the given insults aren't going to seem so childish. In fact, since many vendors and providers simply don't listen, sometimes you have to insult the hell out of them just to get their attention or to get them over the "management direction" hump.
Like Jeff, I get annoyed about changes for the worse. My current big irritation is with Outlook: in previous versions of Outlook that I have used I had no trouble with using UTF8 encoding and accented characters - so email in French, Spanish, Gaelige, Gàidhlig, and German was no problem. With Outlook 2013, I can still type and send email plain text in UTF8 with accented characters, but receipt is different: accented characters in the subject line are fine , as are accented characters in the first text line when it's displayed under the subject line in the inbox (or other folder) view; but in the message view only the subject line accent characters are displayed, accented characters in the email text (including the first line) are displayed as blanks. That's the sort of bug which shouldn't happen. Chances of getting a fix from MS? I imagine they are nil, unless I can get some big French, German, or Spanish MS customer to experience the problem - and maybe they won't experience it, maybe it only happens when you install the English version of Outlook. Feedback on office (or its components) is only possible when you are enrolled in an office beta programme, so (a) ordinary punters don't get to say anything and (b) there is no feedback on anything that is released, as opposed to in beta - except that big customers can feed back through the MS sales reps that deal with them (at Linkguard we got a terrific amount of attention from MS when we bought 40 4-processor standard and 2 4-processor enterprise licenses for SQLS 2000, so I'm well aware that big spending customers are handled differently from small ones)
Tom
August 17, 2017 at 7:39 am
djackson 22568 - Monday, August 19, 2013 9:25 AMOur help desk reinstalls Java multiple times a day. Every time I walk by during an install, if the "3 billion devices run Java" screen is up, you can hear them muttering "yeah, and 3 billion devices no longer work!"
My favorite quote is (paraphrased) "first you have a problem, then you then try to solve it with java, now you have a problem factory."
(I know, replying to an old post)
August 20, 2017 at 3:11 pm
patrickmcginnis59 10839 - Thursday, August 17, 2017 7:39 AMdjackson 22568 - Monday, August 19, 2013 9:25 AMOur help desk reinstalls Java multiple times a day. Every time I walk by during an install, if the "3 billion devices run Java" screen is up, you can hear them muttering "yeah, and 3 billion devices no longer work!"My favorite quote is (paraphrased) "first you have a problem, then you then try to solve it with java, now you have a problem factory."
(I know, replying to an old post)
I don't care how old what you're replying to is, the important thing is your favorite quote (albeit paraphrased) contains extremely valuable information that all developers and all project managers should be aware of. Besides, the old message you replied to is quite illuminating too (although the people I knew mostly didn't mutter, they bellowed agressively with suitable - therefor unacceptable in polite company - adverb inserted after "longer").
Tom
August 20, 2017 at 7:24 pm
patrickmcginnis59 10839 - Thursday, August 17, 2017 7:39 AMdjackson 22568 - Monday, August 19, 2013 9:25 AMOur help desk reinstalls Java multiple times a day. Every time I walk by during an install, if the "3 billion devices run Java" screen is up, you can hear them muttering "yeah, and 3 billion devices no longer work!"My favorite quote is (paraphrased) "first you have a problem, then you then try to solve it with java, now you have a problem factory."
(I know, replying to an old post)
BWAAA-HAAAAA-HAAAA!!!! SPOM! ROFLMAO! 😉 Best laugh I've had in months! I have someone that I'm going to use that on tomorrow morning during scrum! It happens to be my boss but, what the hell... I was looking for a job when I found this one. 😉
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
August 21, 2017 at 2:58 pm
Jeff Moden - Sunday, August 20, 2017 7:24 PMpatrickmcginnis59 10839 - Thursday, August 17, 2017 7:39 AMdjackson 22568 - Monday, August 19, 2013 9:25 AMOur help desk reinstalls Java multiple times a day. Every time I walk by during an install, if the "3 billion devices run Java" screen is up, you can hear them muttering "yeah, and 3 billion devices no longer work!"My favorite quote is (paraphrased) "first you have a problem, then you then try to solve it with java, now you have a problem factory."
(I know, replying to an old post)
BWAAA-HAAAAA-HAAAA!!!! SPOM! ROFLMAO! 😉 Best laugh I've had in months! I have someone that I'm going to use that on tomorrow morning during scrum! It happens to be my boss but, what the hell... I was looking for a job when I found this one. 😉
LOL wish I worked in a java shop just to use it! Apparently the "first you have a problem..." is a programming meme, I thought JWZ started it with "grep" but even that's in doubt apparently
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