On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:55:53 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>> Most of the MS documentation is pretty good, really, but it has indeed
>> been going downhill.
> 
> The thing that annoys me about MS products is that if one day somebody
> phones you up and says "when I try to open Outlook it says error 28123",
> there is *no way* of discovering WTF this code actually means. If you
> open the settings for a program and some option has an ambiguous name,
> you can't look up what the setting actually does. [Bonus points for
> inventing the "help button" which informs you "no help is available for
> this item".] If I see something in Task Manager called mdm.exe, there is
> no way of finding out what this is, what it actually does, or anything
> about it. "Cryptographic Services". Cryptography *for what*? So, do I
> need this? Is it safe to turn it off? Or is it vital?
> 
> In short, almost nothing is documented. I find this extremely
> frustrating.

Now it's been years since I had to seriously look up a Windows error 
code, but it at least used to be that the MS Knowledgebase was pretty 
good about having the things I needed (usually STOP error codes).  Maybe 
that's changed since I switched to Linux; the last Windows thing I did 
was set up a 2008 server and XP clients for our mobile testing centre, 
but I don't use Windows if I don't have to (as you probably know by now).

> The Commodore 64 came with an extensive (yet surprisingly small) user
> manual which, as well as telling you how to wire up the device [which
> admittedly isn't that hard] and advertising all the addons you could buy
> [not many], also tells you everything there is to know about programming
> in BASIC. Well, except for the part about how to *design* a program. It
> tells you exactly what every single command and function in the language
> does. [Admittedly, there aren't that many to describe.]

Yes, the C64, with only 64 KB of memory and a 1 Mhz (more or less) 
processor was a much simpler machine from a much simpler time.  
Similarly, the Model T Ford was a lot simpler than the hybrid Ford 
Focus.  That should really not be that surprising. ;)

Jim

Post a reply to this message