Re: VMS website updated.

From: Paul Sture (p_sture_at_elias.decus.ch)
Date: 09/13/03 

Date: 13 Sep 03 10:40:49 +0200

In article <3F60F4D1.53B8969F@ost.cdrh.fda.gov>, Jonathan Boswell <jsb@ost.cdrh.fda.gov> writes:
> John Travell wrote:
>> I am well aware how this group are not representative of the vast ma[jo]rity of
>> internet users, but I had not fully appreciated just how much a few vocal
>> members seem to have theirs heads buried in the sand.
>
> OK, that is such an outrageous statement you have brought me out of lurk mode.
> For the record, I might run some up-to-date browser on my VMS systems if I
> really felt like it. But most of the time I browse on Windows WITH JAVASCRIPT
> TURNED OFF. I rarely use NS or IE because it is so difficult to turn scripting
> back on again when some braying jackass forces me into it just to navigate their
> obnoxious website. So usually I use Opera, where the Quick Preferences pulldown
> menu allows me easily to turn scripting on or off.
>

<snip>

Well, this discussion prompted me to do a bit of Googling...

http://www.stremler.net/javascript.html

Not much in itself, but links to the following:

http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/javascript-is-evil.html
http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/system-crash.html

But the next link moves off the subject of Javascript and is so
hilarious (and truly sad too), that I am posting it in full:

http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html

original at:

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/17.44.html#subj11

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOCUS Magazine Interview with Bill Gates:
Microsoft Code Has No Bugs (that Microsoft cares about)

In this interview, Big Bill gets distracted and reveals his contempt for
you, his loyal customer.

Slashdotters: yes, it's real.

Note: this page is also available in Italiano, Espaņol, and Japanese.

In an interview for German weekly magazine FOCUS (nr.43, October 23,1995,
pages 206-212), Microsoft`s Mr. Bill Gates has made some statements about
software quality of MS products. [See executive summary, below.] After
lengthy inquiries about how PCs should and could be used (including some
angry comments on some questions which Mr. Gates evidently did not like),
the interviewer comes to storage requirements of MS products; it ends with
the following dispute:

FOCUS: Every new release of a software which has less bugs than the older
one is also more complex and has more features...

Gates: No, only if that is what'll sell!

FOCUS: But...

Gates: Only if that is what'll sell! We've never done a piece of software
unless we thought it would sell. That's why everything we do in software
... it's really amazing: We do it because we think that's what customers
want. That's why we do what we do.

FOCUS: But on the other hand - you would say: Okay, folks, if you don't
like these new features, stay with the old version, and keep the bugs?

Gates: No! We have lots and lots of competitors. The new version - it's
not there to fix bugs. That's not the reason we come up with a new version.

FOCUS: But there are bugs an any version which people would really like to
have fixed.

Gates: No! There are no significant bugs in our released software that any
significant number of users want fixed.

FOCUS: Oh, my God. I always get mad at my computer if MS Word swallows the
page numbers of a document which I printed a couple of times with page
numbers. If I complain to anybody they say "Well, upgrade from version 5.11
to 6.0".

Gates: No! If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug.
Maybe you're not using it properly. Have you ever considered that?

FOCUS: Yeah, I did...

Gates: It turns out Luddites don't know how to use software properly, so
you should look into that. -- The reason we come up with new versions is
not to fix bugs. It's absolutely not. It's the stupidest reason to buy a
new version I ever heard. When we do a new version we put in lots of new
things that people are asking for. And so, in no sense, is stability a
reason to move to a new version. It's never a reason.

FOCUS: How come I keep being told by computer vendors "Well, we know about
this bug, wait till the next version is there, it'll be fixed"? I hear this
all the time. How come? If you're telling me there are no significant bugs
in software and there is no reason to do a new version?

Gates: No. I'm saying: We don't do a new version to fix bugs. We don't.
Not enough people would buy it. You can take a hundred people using
Microsoft Word. Call them up and say "Would you buy a new version because
of bugs?" You won't get a single person to say they'd buy a new version
because of bugs. We'd never be able to sell a release on that basis.

FOCUS: Probably you have other contacts to your software developers. But
if Mister Anybody, like me, calls up a store or a support line and says,
"Hey listen, there's a bug" ... 90 percent of the time I get the answer
"Oh, well, yeah, that's not too bad, wait to the next version and it'll be
fixed". That's how the system works.

Gates: Guess how much we spend on phone calls every year.

FOCUS: Hm, a couple of million dollars?

Gates: 500 million dollars a year. We take every one of these phone calls
and classify them. That's the input we use to do the next version. So it's
like the worlds biggest feedback loop. People call in - we decide what to
do on it. Do you want to know what percentage of those phonecalls relates
to bugs in the software? Less than one percent.

FOCUS: So people call in to say "Hey listen, I would love to have this and
that feature"?

Gates: Actually, that's about five percent. Most of them call to get
advice on how to do a certain thing with the software. That's the primary
thing. We could have you sit and listen to these phone calls. There are
millions and millions of them. It really isn't statistically significant.
Sit in and listen to Win 95 calls, sit in and listen to Word calls, and
wait, just wait for weeks and weeks for someone to call in and say "Oh, I
found a bug in this thing". ...

FOCUS: So where does this common feeling of frustration come from that
unites all the PC users? Everybody experiences it every day that these
things simply don't work like they should.

Gates: Because it's cool. It's like, "Yeah, been there done that - oh,
yeah, I know that bug." - I can understand that phenomenon sociologically,
not technically.

Executive Summary:

So...

Bug reports are statistically, therefore actually, unimportant; If you
want a bug fixed, you are (by definition) in the minority; Microsoft
doesn't care about bugs because bug fixes are not a significant source of
revenue; If you think you found a bug, it really only means you're
incompetent; Anyway, people only complain about bugs to show how cool they
are, not because bugs cause any real problems.

Straight from the horse's mouth.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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