 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New wrote:
> Their IDEs are some of the best out there.
Since I haven't used any recent M$ IDE, I don't feel I'm qualified to
comment on that.
10 years ago I used J++ Visual Studio. It sucked. Massively. But then,
so did the OS it was running on, and they have at least improved that
somewhat, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps this has changed now, but back when I used VS, it *insisted*
that you work in precisely the way that the program's designers
envisiged, and if you try to structure your work in any other way, the
IDE fights you every single step of the way. For a 1-man programming
project such as the things I worked on, it's merely irritating to have
to bend my working habits to accomodate the IDE. But I'm curios... for a
large project featuring a vast codebase and dozens if not hundreds of
programmers, I would think such cast-iron inflexibility would be a
massive, potentially show-stopping issue.
Is this somehow not the case? Or have they made VS more flexible now?
> You can code Excel and Word...all without any programming.
Uh... really? Isn't that kinda contradictory? :-D
> Hell, their word processor is powerful enough to have macros that are
> viruses.
Perhaps by "powerful" you mean "not throught out correctly"? :-P
Heck, there's no way in hell anybody would ever think of writing a virus
for such an absurd platform as POV-Ray - and yet, it has strict
antiviral features, enabled by default. And it had them from day 1. And
there wasn't even a paid designer!
Still, for me the best feature has to be that they spent all this time
designing a macro system, and then didn't bother to document it. Before
you jump down my throat... yes, I *realise* that if you want to know why
MyFooFunction() does, it's trivial to look it up. But if you want to
find out what function will, say, change cell D7 to today's date... good
luck figuring that out from the minimal helpfile.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Uhuh. And now open Word, type a few sentences, apply some minimal formatting to it,
and behold as an animated paperclip pops up and says "Hey! That looks like you're
trying to type a letter! Are you so retarded that you can't figure out how to do that
properly all by yourself, or should I just **** off and let you get on with what you
were trying to do in the first place?"
Because unlike some systems, MS designs things to be usable both by casual
customers and expert customers. For the most part, at least. That the
paperclip offers to help out doesn't mean the system is useless to experts,
which is what you were contending.
> Is this somehow not the case? Or have they made VS more flexible now?
You can certainly still use the command line if you want.
> for a large project featuring a vast codebase and dozens if not hundreds of
programmers, I would think such cast-iron inflexibility would be a massive,
potentially show-stopping issue.
Not necessarily. It gets everybody working the same way, which is good.
Since I can't guess what problems your hyperbole refers to, I couldn't guess
whether they fixed it or not.
>> You can code Excel and Word...all without any programming.
> Uh... really? Isn't that kinda contradictory? :-D
It depends on what you mean by "code". Can you build a spreadsheet without
coding? If so, you can load the cells from a SQL server without coding.
> Perhaps by "powerful" you mean "not throught out correctly"? :-P
I'm not sure what that has to do with whether experts can use the system.
> But if you want to
> find out what function will, say, change cell D7 to today's date... good
> luck figuring that out from the minimal helpfile.
And if you want to iterate over all the elements in a list in Haskell and
apply your function to them, good luck figuring out it's called "map"
without having read a book about functional programming first.
The help file isn't to teach you every feature of the system. Stuff is too
complex for that these days. You either look it up on MSDN, or you buy a
book, or you go to a class, or something like that. The man page for GCC
doesn't tell you how to program, either.
However, entering "set cell to today's date" in help brings back "Inser the
current date and time in a cell" as the first hit, and "date and time
functions" as the second hit, so I'm not sure what you're looking for there.
The first hit on "excel insert date function" on MSDN gives you back some
sample code in VBA, if that's what you're talking about. So again, I'm not
sure what you're looking for that you aren't finding. About a third of the
way down the page is the tutorial for "Accessing Microsoft Office Data from
.NET Applications," which would seem to cover the entire bit there.
Which is not to say it isn't frustrating sometimes to look for
functionality. But it's not like the information isn't out there anywhere -
it's just hard to find.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> large project featuring a vast codebase and dozens if not hundreds of
> programmers, I would think such cast-iron inflexibility would be a
> massive, potentially show-stopping issue.
BTW, given that Microsoft uses their own compilers and tools, and they do
manage to put out some pretty sophisticated software that takes lots of
people to build, it would seem that the tools are sufficiently flexible to
avoid show-stopping hundreds of programmers working on a massive system.
Yes, Vista was late. We all know that.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 2/9/2009 1:28 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Uhuh. And now open Word, type a few sentences, apply some minimal
> formatting to it, and behold as an animated paperclip pops up and says
> "Hey! That looks like you're trying to type a letter! Are you so
> retarded that you can't figure out how to do that properly all by
> yourself, or should I just **** off and let you get on with what you
> were trying to do in the first place?"
Have you any idea how many people in the workforce cannot write a well
formatted letter? Features like that make Word an attractive product
for many hundreds of thousands, if not literally millions, of people who
would otherwise not bother with it.
> Open up Access and ask to create a new database. A helpful wizard offers
> to generate a CD indexing database for you automatically. Because, you
> know, you might be too stupid to work out how to create a few tables all
> by yourself, after all.
Actually, the first few times I used Access, I had it autocreate some
DBs for me so I could see how the structure worked. But then, I've
never used SQL (except a few commands in a PHP script), and I've never
studied database design, so maybe I'm one of those users who is "too
stupid to work out how" by myself.
> Similarly, there is apparently no way for a knowledgable system
> administrator like myself to install and configure a copy of Windows.
At least through XP, there was a method of burning your own custom
install of Windows to an image that could be used from a CD for an
unattended install. I believe there was a way to do remote installs as
well, but I'm not sure about that one.
--
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Chambers wrote:
> Have you any idea how many people in the workforce cannot write a well
> formatted letter?
Or how many marketing people struggle with basic grammar, for that matter? :-)
>> Similarly, there is apparently no way for a knowledgable system
>> administrator like myself to install and configure a copy of Windows.
>
> At least through XP, there was a method of burning your own custom
> install of Windows to an image that could be used from a CD for an
> unattended install. I believe there was a way to do remote installs as
> well, but I'm not sure about that one.
Yes. If you never look for the information, of course, you don't find it.
But HP doesn't sit there installing the OS one at a time when they make
machines. :-)
http://labmice.techtarget.com/windowsxp/Install/unattend.htm
You know, that wasn't really hard at all. A pretty obvious google query
answers that for you, with links to all the official MS pages.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Uhuh. And now open Word, type a few sentences, apply some minimal
>> formatting to it, and behold as an animated paperclip pops up and says
>> "Hey! That looks like you're trying to type a letter! Are you so
>> retarded that you can't figure out how to do that properly all by
>> yourself, or should I just **** off and let you get on with what you
>> were trying to do in the first place?"
>
> Have you any idea how many people in the workforce cannot write a well
> formatted letter? Features like that make Word an attractive product
> for many hundreds of thousands, if not literally millions, of people who
> would otherwise not bother with it.
Sure. But why couldn't they have added a button that says "yes, I
actually know how to operate a computer, please stop screwing up all my
formatting and just do what I tell you to do, not what you 'think' I
want you to do". Or maybe released a seperate version of the software
for experts or something. It's maddening trying to build a document with
complex formatting and having to constantly revert the automatic,
non-deterministic changes that Word keeps applying.
>> Open up Access and ask to create a new database. A helpful wizard offers
>> to generate a CD indexing database for you automatically. Because, you
>> know, you might be too stupid to work out how to create a few tables all
>> by yourself, after all.
>
> Actually, the first few times I used Access, I had it autocreate some
> DBs for me so I could see how the structure worked. But then, I've
> never used SQL (except a few commands in a PHP script), and I've never
> studied database design, so maybe I'm one of those users who is "too
> stupid to work out how" by myself.
Well, I guess it depends who you think Access is actually aimed at. If
you accept that Access is designed for beginners, then I guess it makes
more sense. Presumably products like SQL Server are designed to be used
by experts - and, correspondingly, don't have the irritating wizards.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> large project featuring a vast codebase and dozens if not hundreds of
>> programmers, I would think such cast-iron inflexibility would be a
>> massive, potentially show-stopping issue.
>
> BTW, given that Microsoft uses their own compilers and tools, and they
> do manage to put out some pretty sophisticated software that takes lots
> of people to build, it would seem that the tools are sufficiently
> flexible to avoid show-stopping hundreds of programmers working on a
> massive system.
Doesn't that just mean that VS matches the way the development teams at
M$ happen to structure their work?
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Have you any idea how many people in the workforce cannot write a well
>> formatted letter?
>
> Or how many marketing people struggle with basic grammar, for that
> matter? :-)
That's kinda worrying. I thought that only happens in Dilbert world?
> Yes. If you never look for the information, of course, you don't find
> it. But HP doesn't sit there installing the OS one at a time when they
> make machines. :-)
Well, since HP sells millions of identical machines, I would suspect
they do what I do - create a disk image and clone it onto each machine.
That still doesn't help you if you just want to set up one machine, but
you want to configure it in a specific way. There is basically no way
round it; you *must* run the irritating wizard, and then spend half an
hour undoing all the incorrect configuration it did. There's no way to
abort or circumvent the wizard and configure manually.
> http://labmice.techtarget.com/windowsxp/Install/unattend.htm
>
> You know, that wasn't really hard at all. A pretty obvious google query
> answers that for you, with links to all the official MS pages.
Uhuh, and let's see what this page actually says...
- "How to deploy using RIS". Cool. I don't have RIS, but anyway...
- "How to perform unattended install from CD-ROM". Which basically says
you need the Resource Kit that I can't obtain. Nice.
- "How to use Group Policy to remotely upgrade from Windows 2000 to
Windows XP". Interesting that you can do that, but I would never, ever,
attempt to do something so hazardous.
- "How to use SysPrep: An Introduction". Now this sounds actually
useful... oh, wait, it redirects to the Windows XP Homepage. So no help
there then. (Having spent time wrestling with SysPrep and trying to
guess how to work it, this might have been quite useful.)
- The second SysPrep link also redirects to the XP homepage.
- "How to use the SysPrep tool to automate the installation of Windows
XP". Ah, *this* link actually works! And contains some moderately useful
information...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Uhuh. And now open Word, type a few sentences, apply some minimal
>> formatting to it, and behold as an animated paperclip pops up and says
>> "Hey! That looks like you're trying to type a letter! Are you so
>> retarded that you can't figure out how to do that properly all by
>> yourself, or should I just **** off and let you get on with what you
>> were trying to do in the first place?"
>
> Because unlike some systems, MS designs things to be usable both by
> casual customers and expert customers. For the most part, at least. That
> the paperclip offers to help out doesn't mean the system is useless to
> experts, which is what you were contending.
The paperclip at least can be disabled. The other unecessary
helpy-helper features seem to be unavoidable. (E.g., Word tries to
automatically format your text based on text you've recently typed. Even
if you expressedly don't want it to. It insists on correcting
capitalisation, even if you don't want it to. And so on.)
It's just so frustrating that there is no way to make M$ software do
what you tell it to do, rather than what it thinks you want it to do.
Computers are hopeless at figuring out what humans want!
>> Is this somehow not the case? Or have they made VS more flexible now?
>
> You can certainly still use the command line if you want.
Sure, but... you can do that for free. Presumably if you paid hundreds
of dollars for an IDE, you actually want to... I don't know... use the IDE?
>> for a large project featuring a vast codebase and dozens if not
>> hundreds of programmers, I would think such cast-iron inflexibility
>> would be a massive, potentially show-stopping issue.
>
> Not necessarily. It gets everybody working the same way, which is good.
I can see some value in that I guess.
> Since I can't guess what problems your hyperbole refers to, I couldn't
> guess whether they fixed it or not.
It insists that your files must be arranged in a certain way. It insists
that your code must have a specific layout. It insists on autogenerating
buckets of code that you then have to manually delete. It insists on
inserting dummy comments here and there. And so on.
It must be really hard if you decide you want to use some sort of
revision control, since the fixed file layout has human-written source
code muddled up with VS configuration files, autogenerated cache files,
object files, and so on.
On the other hand, maybe for a really large project it's not so much of
an issue. Maybe it's just that all this boilerplate is massively
overkill for a project consisting of 6 Java classes totalling about 200
lines?
>>> You can code Excel and Word...all without any programming.
>> Uh... really? Isn't that kinda contradictory? :-D
>
> It depends on what you mean by "code". Can you build a spreadsheet
> without coding? If so, you can load the cells from a SQL server without
> coding.
That makes more sense. ;-)
>> But if you want to find out what function will, say, change cell D7 to
>> today's date... good luck figuring that out from the minimal helpfile.
>
> And if you want to iterate over all the elements in a list in Haskell
> and apply your function to them, good luck figuring out it's called
> "map" without having read a book about functional programming first.
Sure. Haskell has lame documentation. This is not news. OTOH, Haskell
doesn't cost hundreds of dollars either.
> The help file isn't to teach you every feature of the system. Stuff is
> too complex for that these days.
POV-Ray's manual teaches you every feature of the system. And I don't
mean it just gives you a list of all the commands and what they do, it
actually *teaches* you the complete system, in a coherant way.
As far as I can tell, no such documentation exists for any M$ product.
They all come with a help file, but generally these only cover the
blindingly obvious. Again the assumption is that the person operating
the computer is a moron. I find this irritating and insulting.
> You either look it up on MSDN, or you
> buy a book, or you go to a class, or something like that.
It seems that if you want to know anything remotely "technical" about M$
products, the only way to find out is to go on a course. I find this
very objectionable. I've paid money for this product, why can't you just
tell me how to operate it? Why must I now pay even more money?
Also, FWIW, I went on an M$ course once. It was a waste of time. There
was almost no technical content to it. It was all "click this button,
fill in this box, now click that button..." Apparently if you want to
actually get technical detail, you have to go on yet *another* course.
(I wonder how many courses you have to take before you really know what
you're talking about?)
> The man page for GCC doesn't tell you how to program, either.
Because that's not specific to GCC. *Every* C compiler accepts the same
source code as input. I'll bet the GCC manpage tells you what all the
GCC-specific options and switches do though.
> However, entering "set cell to today's date" in help brings back "Inser
> the current date and time in a cell" as the first hit, and "date and
> time functions" as the second hit, so I'm not sure what you're looking
> for there.
Well, last time I tried, I wasted about 4 days wandering through the VBA
help looking for the name of the VB functions and properties for
accessing a cell in a worksheet, and finding out what today's date is.
The actual code is not remotely complex, but it took *days* to track
down the magic command names. It really was ridiculously hard.
Let us not even go into the fact that I only know VBA exists by complete
accident. It's not like there's anything anywhere that explains what
this stuff is. Fortunately, VB's syntax is sufficiently simple that you
can mostly guess how it works - again, I don't see a syntax description
anywhere.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Or how many marketing people struggle with basic grammar, for that
>> matter? :-)
>
> That's kinda worrying. I thought that only happens in Dilbert world?
I just received the following email from one of our business development
people:
Hi guys
I have no idea if it matters or not????!!!
Andrew - ??
So that's BD, not marketing, but still... o_O
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
