After three attempts at blogging this week, am I finally gonna post one? I wanted to blog about my short Bangkok shopping trip, but it had been more than 2 weeks, everything gone stale. I wanted to blog about how overrated CNY is to me, but I am too lazy too do so. I wanted to blog about my lousy day at work, but I feel like a big whinner just by typing it.
I came across the IE Blog today. They had released IE7 beta version for developers and users to test and report any bugs. The new UI seems pretty good. Especially the toolbar and tabbed browsing (although it is nothing new, but it is finally time that IE includes this feature). It wasn't surprising that within a few days many bugs including a possible security flaw were reported. The guys at Microsoft said that it was a known bug which will be fixed in the next build.
I am not surprised at the number of bugs found, not because I think Microsoft products are highly flawed, but because Microsoft products always have their fair share of critics. This can be a software engineer's nightmare, many people out there are targeting your work, or a software engineer's dream, many people are supporting you to constantly with feedbacks and you are inspired to build more quality into your product. Personally, I am not sure if I will be able to handle that much "support".
Whose products do not have any bugs? I guess discovering bugs in a beta version does not imply that they do not produce quality software. In fact, I think that they have adopted a very effective testing strategy of releasing the beta version. With so many loyal critics behind them, they are able to find most bugs or security flaws, at almost no cost at all.
I think the criticisms that Microsoft products draw are probably due to their large market share and high prices they charge which we are never too comfortable with. I don't think their developers are lousy in any way. Who doesn't feel that it is a prestige to work in Redmond? In fact, those guys behind the Microsoft products are probably the best programmers in the world. In the IE Blog, I read that the one of the IE7 User Experience Project Manager, Uche Enuha, is a recent college graduate hire. Certainly, she must know more than a thing or two to land herself in such a post. I did a quick search and found that she is a MIT graduate.
I read in PC Magazine before about how tough it was to develop an OS. And the approach that Microsoft had taken these years was to put together many different developers to quickly come out with something, and thereafter tried to fix the holes in the net one by one. An OS probably is too large and will take a long time to design and develop like other normal software. In this world driven by money, such a technique may not be feasible. On the other hand, open source OS like Mandrake and Red Hat are using similar Linux kernel and standards which the community has developed throughout the years. Being non-profit driven means the developers can take their time to build better quality software with more time.
I think I shall stop here, short of trying to make anymore comparison. Cuz it is quite unfair to compare and I don't want start on debate on whether open source is better. But I think maybe next time when we start cursing when the blue screen of death appears, lets give some thoughts to the brains behind the software, they are some of the best, they have tried really hard, its not easy to produce a perfect large scale software. Of cuz you can go on and say "but they are paid million of bucks yadayada....", but hey, at least sometimes they provide a channel for you to report the error, for them to fix it, so that you'll get better products next time. Hah, who cares anyway???
I came across the IE Blog today. They had released IE7 beta version for developers and users to test and report any bugs. The new UI seems pretty good. Especially the toolbar and tabbed browsing (although it is nothing new, but it is finally time that IE includes this feature). It wasn't surprising that within a few days many bugs including a possible security flaw were reported. The guys at Microsoft said that it was a known bug which will be fixed in the next build.
I am not surprised at the number of bugs found, not because I think Microsoft products are highly flawed, but because Microsoft products always have their fair share of critics. This can be a software engineer's nightmare, many people out there are targeting your work, or a software engineer's dream, many people are supporting you to constantly with feedbacks and you are inspired to build more quality into your product. Personally, I am not sure if I will be able to handle that much "support".
Whose products do not have any bugs? I guess discovering bugs in a beta version does not imply that they do not produce quality software. In fact, I think that they have adopted a very effective testing strategy of releasing the beta version. With so many loyal critics behind them, they are able to find most bugs or security flaws, at almost no cost at all.
I think the criticisms that Microsoft products draw are probably due to their large market share and high prices they charge which we are never too comfortable with. I don't think their developers are lousy in any way. Who doesn't feel that it is a prestige to work in Redmond? In fact, those guys behind the Microsoft products are probably the best programmers in the world. In the IE Blog, I read that the one of the IE7 User Experience Project Manager, Uche Enuha, is a recent college graduate hire. Certainly, she must know more than a thing or two to land herself in such a post. I did a quick search and found that she is a MIT graduate.
I read in PC Magazine before about how tough it was to develop an OS. And the approach that Microsoft had taken these years was to put together many different developers to quickly come out with something, and thereafter tried to fix the holes in the net one by one. An OS probably is too large and will take a long time to design and develop like other normal software. In this world driven by money, such a technique may not be feasible. On the other hand, open source OS like Mandrake and Red Hat are using similar Linux kernel and standards which the community has developed throughout the years. Being non-profit driven means the developers can take their time to build better quality software with more time.
I think I shall stop here, short of trying to make anymore comparison. Cuz it is quite unfair to compare and I don't want start on debate on whether open source is better. But I think maybe next time when we start cursing when the blue screen of death appears, lets give some thoughts to the brains behind the software, they are some of the best, they have tried really hard, its not easy to produce a perfect large scale software. Of cuz you can go on and say "but they are paid million of bucks yadayada....", but hey, at least sometimes they provide a channel for you to report the error, for them to fix it, so that you'll get better products next time. Hah, who cares anyway???
Comments