back to article Nothing's as SCARY as an overly aggressive SOFTWARE PIMP

"Fans, players and parents unite against England's 'rip-off' £90 World Cup kit" screamed the Mirror this week. "They think it’s all over... priced." Even after several thousand years of civilisation and organised commerce, it seems humans still don’t understand basic economics. Demand, not cost of manufacture, determines the …

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  1. TonyJ
    Pint

    :-)

    Made me chuckle, Dabbsy. Just what the Dr. ordered on a Fri lunchtime.

  2. Lusty

    "can you really convince yourself that Windows 8.1 is better than XP"

    Yes, yes I can. Try them both on a 13" retina display for instance and XP will show one of its many failings.

    1. hplasm
      WTF?

      Re:"Try them both on a 13" retina display..."

      You have 13" eyes? Are you a squid?

      1. i like crisps
        WTF?

        Re: Try them both on a 13" retina display..."

        If he is a squid, then he's a rich one.....13 displays!!! you greedy bastard!!!

      2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
        Pint

        Re: Try them both on a 13" retina display..."

        @hplasm

        Sir, I just howled with laughter so hard that tears were streaming down my face. Thank you. I haven't laughed like that in years. God damn, I needed that.

        Squid!

    2. big_D Silver badge

      I have to agree. Next to ME, XP was probably the worst version of Windows ever. Well, it was sort of okay after SP2 came out.

      I was a 2000 user, that was brilliant. Then XP came out with its Fisher Price looks and I just couldn't take it seriously. Using it wasn't any better than 2000 and it was buggy as hell.

      That was when I put Linux on a spare PC and tried it out. Over the years Linux moved from the test PC to my main PC and the test PC had XP on it for compatibility testing of Office documents before sending them out. Using KDE made XP feel ancient and it just didn't appeal. Then I got a Mac in 2006, in 2007 I bought a new PC and it came with Vista and it was so much better than XP - okay, it was a bit bloated and ran slower on the old hardware than XP did, but it was easier to use and security was up front, in yer face, just like Linux. In fact it felt like Microsoft had been secretly looking over the fence at Linux and put some of the good bits into Windows.

      7 improved on it, of course. That was a much better OS than Vista. Vista is much maligned, but just like XP, it only really became a quality OS after you installed a service pack, luckily with Vista SP1 was enough to turn it around. But by then it was too late.

      And Windows 8? I like it a lot, given a choice, I'd take it over Windows 7, but 7 is good enough that it probably isn't worth the full price upgrade to most people - I upgraded my machines with the 25€ deal, with free Media Center.

      But there is no way I would go back to XP, you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming!

      1. John Lodge

        Vista was dreadful, slow, bloated and unusable in default release mode. Rather like Windows 8 really.

    3. Nigel 11

      Under the hood?

      "can you really convince yourself that Windows 8.1 is better than XP"

      Under the hood? Even speaking as someone who loathes Windows 8, it's definitely a large improvement over Windows XP in places where only systems guys ever venture. It's also an improvement over Windows 7. (In both cases, excluding the graphical configuration interfaces which are a step backwards).

      All of which isn't worth a bean, against the fact that the NT 4 / Win 2000 / XP user interface which we knew and loved has been thrown away, and we're expected to enjoy being sent back to the nursery school. (Windows Programmers tell me it's much the same with the programming interfaces)

      Linux gets this right. We can upgrade the user interface as and when there is a reason to do so. We can choose between many. If Microsoft did things the Linux way, you could install all of XP, Win 7 and Win 8 userr interfaces on the same system, and choose which you wanted when you logged in. You might have been able to install Windows 8 with a "boot to XP" environment, upgrade a user on a Saturday, and on Monday that user wouldn't notice that anything at all had happened.

      But that's not the Microsoft way. Which is why I hate Windows 8, and the company that inflicted it on us.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Under the hood?

        That's exactly the mistake MS avoided and explains why Linux has risible desktop share well below OSX one, that 'strangely' enforces a single UI exactly like Windows does. Standardization is often a good thing.

    4. Lusty

      Blimey, all those downvotes just for mentioning XPs poor screen scaling support. Lucky I didn't mention the shitty search indexing, poor security model, lack of IPv6, ancient task manager, no built in hypervisor, proper flash disk support, lack of real x64 support or the massive list of other things XP can't do that Windows 8.1 can do very well indeed. Oh, and booting almost instantly from cold. That's one of my favourites :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        It's wasted time. They do not understand how system programming evolved over the past thirteen years to support an evolving hardware, and they judge an OS just from the shell and widgets look.

        Understanding the changes underneath requires knowledge not everybody has, it's an highly specialized kind of programming, and became pretty complex. Moreover, the mainstream development moved to web applications and managed/scripted languages, the less developers had to cope with an OS 'internals', and they give for simple and granted features that require a fairly complex management in the background.

      2. M Gale

        Oh, and booting almost instantly from cold.

        Ahem, pretty much any OS does that when you're booting it up from a RAM drive. Or SSD, as the case may be.

        Try Windows 8 on the identical hardware to a few other OSes, and you'll find it's not all that speedy on the "start from zero" metric. Faster than Windows XP, perhaps.

        1. Lusty

          Mine boots just as quickly from the 5400 rpm laptop drive actually. If you investigate how Windows does this you'd see it has very little to do with IOPS - they are doing a single sequential read for the boot code and applications all the way up to log in, and that is what gives it the speed.

  3. pirithous

    Boring Read

    This article never gets to a point. It switched around rapidly from topic to topic, opinion after opinion. What was the author on when he wrote it? I'm no Microsoft fan, but I found Windows 95 extremely usable. Look back at my previous comments if you're interested in how I feel about Windows. I was so excited when Windows 95 came out, and I thought it was great.

    How about some professional journalism?

    1. Swarthy

      Re: Boring Read

      If you found Win95 extremely usable, you never used OS/2. IT came out a fair bit prior, and '95 felt like visiting the parents after having moved out: it was familiar, but the kitchen is re-organized and your bedroom had been turned into a yoga studio.

      Win95 was usable, but only just.

      1. phuzz Silver badge
        Stop

        Re: Boring Read

        I've just had a think, and I don't think I found an OS that was a stable, even over the long term, as AmigaOS until Windows 7.*

        Everything up to XP was less stable, and less capable. XP just about managed to be more useful, but still fell over from time to time, and needed a reinstall about once a year.

        Win 7 was the first microsoft OS I used that didn't need re-installing at regular intervals (Vista was close, but had back tracked on the usability front). I'm still using the same installation from it's first release, on a computer that's been upgraded so many times that every single component is different.

        * The hardware kept improving of course, but software has continued to bloat at the same rate.

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Boring Read

      I am thrilled at the prospect of looking through all of your previous comments to find out how you feel about Windows. It certainly won't be as boring as this article!

      1. Semtex451

        Thanks Dabbsy for venting that article so I don't have to.

        I know "Something after the weekend" doesn't have the same ring to it but Mondays might be a better day to cheer us up.

        So what's this Voice thing you won't be appearing in then?

        1. Martin Budden Silver badge

          I know "Something after the weekend" doesn't have the same ring to it but Mondays might be a better day to cheer us up.

          In Australia the Friday articles don't arrive until Saturday anyway ;-)

      2. pirithous

        Re: Boring Read

        "I am thrilled at the prospect of looking through all of your previous comments to find out how you feel about Windows. It certainly won't be as boring as this article!"

        The point was that I'm not a Microsoft shill, but apparently you missed that. Secondly, comparing comments I leave on here to someone attempting to do "journalism" is a really weak argument. Hopefully your next article won't be a cacophony of non sequitur ramblings.

        1. Alistair Dabbs

          Re: Boring Read

          >> Hopefully your next article won't be a cacophony of non sequitur ramblings.

          Abandon hope now because next week's column will be equally poor. They're all quite dreadful.

          1. Lionel Baden

            Re: Boring Read

            @alistair

            if you keep up this style of commenting i think im going to start attacking your articles as well.

            Im thoroughly enjoying it, and knowing that he is missing the point completely is amusing

            p.s. you article is full fo speling mistakes and not good grammer ;

          2. Euripides Pants
            Devil

            Re: Boring Read

            "They're all quite dreadful."

            And I feel better about myself after reading them.

            BTW, I'm not very nice (in case you haven't noticed)...

    3. Lunatik

      Re: Boring Read

      95 was certainly usable (and a revelation after 3.11WFW) but only OSR2 cemented its position.

      But apart from that minor point, Mr D is spot on :)

      1. Alistair Dabbs

        Re: Boring Read

        Installing Windows 95 was the equivalent of replacing your hard disk with one with half the capacity, inserting a two-second delay after clicking anything and rendering half your peripherals incompatible. Upgrades like that I could do without.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: Boring Read

          Mr Dabbs,

          I have to agree about Win95 - and don't understand the people who say how yummy it was. Distance in time dulling the pain? I had Win 3.1, which was quick on crap hardware, solid and almost never fell over, or did weird stuff to you.

          By comparison Win 95 was like dancing on eggshells. It was good. Could be great, when it worked. But you always felt you were seconds from disaster. Lock-ups, crashes and doom. Plus you had to re-install it every so often, if you wanted to clean up the mess. It was Win95 that taught me to hit save, before I dared hit print.

          My hatred for it may also have something to do with the time I came into work one Monday morning in about 99. IT had done an upgrade on all the PCs in the US mult-national I worked for. My trusty NT4 PC was still there, but when I booted it up I discovered that they'd 'upgraded' us all to Win 95! This made me sad.

    4. Decade
      Windows

      Windows 95 was useful, not great

      I remember when Windows 95 came out. Shortly afterwards, I visited some computer stores, and I was assailed by that Windows 95 boot sound from all sides. I interpreted that to mean that Windows 95 was not especially stable. Almost 19 years ago... Feels like a completely different world, one where Microsoft was considered a hero by everyone except the Apple Evangelists (an actual thing, headed by Guy Kawasaki), and people lined up to buy copies of Windows 95 at launch. At least Ctrl-Alt-Del worked reliably.

      Windows 95 was slower than Windows 3.1, but I used it anyway. It was the mid-90's: Why continue to use retarded 8.3 filenames? Windows 95 also had preemptive multitasking among Win32 processes, and its own built-in TCP/IP stack, and Plug-and-Pray so you didn't need to configure devices using text files as much, and it did useful things with that right-click button that exists on every single mouse intended for a PC. Still didn't do anything useful with the middle-click, but that was less common.

      I think of myself as an optimist. Computers are stupid. Every OS sucks. I hate computers. I think I am an optimist because I consider upgrades to be an opportunity to approach, ever so slightly, the ideal of a computer that actually works for you. Windows XP is insecure and slow and bad at 64-bit and bad for the Internet, so it needs to be eliminated. Windows 8 is terrible, but I think it's better than XP.

  4. southpacificpom
    Coat

    Oh!

    When I saw the title of this article I thought it was a piece about Mozilla. My mistake, carry on...

  5. TheOtherHobbes

    Erm - planned obsolescence? You know, that thing big corporates do because it's the only way they can make any money?

    It's not just for fridges and boy bands, you know.

    What's worse is that Planet Linux does it too. I'd really like one *incredibly good* desktop, not an endless stream of nearly-there--this-time-we-mean-it ones.

    But coders gonna code. So there's that.

    1. southpacificpom
      Linux

      Calling planet Linux

      Planet Linux has been renamed Planet Chrome OS, expect to hear big things about it in the next year or two.

      Even though I don't have much time for Ubuntu since 11.10, I still think it's a worthy effort. Might even give 14.04's tyres a kick.

      1. Infernoz Bronze badge

        Re: Calling planet Linux

        Mint makes Ubuntu usable, the childish Ubuntu UI is nearly as bad as WIndows 8.*

      2. M Gale

        Re: Calling planet Linux

        Planet Chrome OS

        That's not really a proper Linux though, any more than firing up a 3270 emulator makes your PC a System Z mainframe.

    2. Paul Kinsler
      Happy

      Re: planned obsolescence [...] Planet Linux does it too

      Oh no! Are they going to retire the fvwm window manager now? Dammit, I'll have to switch back to twm!

      1. Euripides Pants

        Re: planned obsolescence [...] Planet Linux does it too

        There's always Rat Poison.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    virtually identical t-shirt

    you speak with a forked-tongue sir. Or with sales speak, at least (same thing, innit). "Virtually" is one of those wonderful words which means "it's not the real thing but hey, if they see you in this t-shirt, you'll pass for Steven Gerrard, just."

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: virtually identical t-shirt

      Well it can't be the *same* shirt as worn by Steven Gerrard for the simple reason that Steven Gerrard will be wearing that one. It can't be *identical* either because Steven Gerrard's shirt is not a size XXXXL. But in every other respect, the replica shirt is of the same design, uses similar materials (again, not the *same* materials because those are already sewn into SG's shirt) and created by the same manufacturer.

      Now look how long it took me to write all that. Easier to write 'virtually identical t-shirt'. That's good enough for anybody except for an insufferable pedant.

  7. i like crisps
    Happy

    FUNNY FELLA

    Very entertaining piece, agreed with everything.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    why not try coding this shit more slowly and more carefully in the first place?

    let me take a guess.... it might be because

    1. punters are already groomed into being free (actually paying) guinea pigs

    2. it saves Adobe a lot of money for them developers (see guinea pigs above)

    3. they can. having a (not virtual, but factual) monopoly (hard earned) helps a lot

    4. they can flog the cloud as the perfect solution for all ills, thus grooming customers into believing, or just resigning themselves to the fact, that if it ain't in the cloud, it's got to be shit. And Adobe has more than a couple of fingers up the cloud's arse (or pie).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: why not try coding this shit more slowly and more carefully in the first place?

      No, he is clueless, or just drowning in de-Nile ;)

      Developers have constraints which mean we have to release "good enough" stuff, or basically not get paid, because of this obsession with short-cutting and short termism to make more profits, and the covert _deliberate_ corruption of the education system which makes for less capable people.

      A lot of other products are probably developed this way, but people seem not notice this much e.g. flawed production mechanical design of physical products, which causes them to break, malfunction, or be less usable for stupid reasons, even for premium goods e.g. what moron thought it was a good idea to put a flat bottom surface on a CNC switch to be mounted on a _round_ handlebar, and with Velcro, seriously WTF!

    2. Tom 35

      Re: why not try coding this shit more slowly and more carefully in the first place?

      Before "cloud" Adobe has be one of the Kings of adding useless crap into software so they have something to put on the Box to sell upgrades. Acrobat has not had a useful new feature (other then making it work with the latest version of windows / office) in about 15 years. I do NOT want music and video in my PDF thankyouverymuch and Flash, hell no!

      Now with "cloud" I expect as soon as they have enough people signed up they will no longer need to create useless feature upgrades to the software. That could be good if they only need to maintain the software and add feature people ask for, but I expect soon management will decide that that developer "cost center" can be killed off for a quick stock price boost.

  9. Sporkinum

    Upgrayedd

    A gentleman who goes by the name Upgrayedd. Which he spells thusly, with two D's, as he says, "for a double dose of this pimping". You see, a pimp's love is very different from that of a square.

    1. Semtex451

      Re: Upgrayedd

      Idiocracy awaits its true

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Only time will tell...

    How strong Microsoft's pimp-hand really is !

  11. Andrew Moore

    UPGRAYEDD

    The extra D is "for a double dose of this pimping"

  12. CJN1946

    Upgrades, whether we need them or not, give software engineers something to do or more likely to correct the cock ups in previous versions.

  13. tony2heads
    Unhappy

    reminds me of a poster

    There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over.

    Seems so horribly true for software.

    Also why do they always try to add extra features (and bloat). Why not get a 'good enough' set just right.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: reminds me of a poster

      Speaking as a dev, the problem is the "softness" of software - quality is rated lower than features because "bugs can always be fixed later" (by that, the PHBs mean "replaced by new bugs, later").

      For the first time I've been working on some embedded software, and am really enjoying that fact that the project manager wants me to take the time to make it work perfectly - and also that it is not cluttered with pointless features.

    2. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: reminds me of a poster

      Ahem. Now let us read another passage from The Fine Book.

      And thus was it spoken in Murphy 4:4

      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

  14. AndrueC Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Adobe needlessly locked itself into an 18-month upgrade cycle just before the turn of the century, when it exacerbated the process by kludging half its product line into a suite. The result was..

    ..Acrobat Reader(TM) Icons appearing on my desktop. Possibly the most useless object ever to appear on my desktop.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Are you serious?

      Microsoft thinks its the start button.

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