MFC Not Dead
in [MFC]
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From: Joseph M. Newcomer on 19 Jun 2010 10:44 What is *really* scary is the concept that there *are* grandmothers who are developers. It means I've been in this field too long (I know at least two expert programmers who are now grandmothers) joe (No, I just realized I know three, if you count step-grandmothers) joe On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:20:08 -0300, Cholo Lennon <chololennon(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >On 10/06/2010 07:08, Mikel wrote: >> On 10 jun, 07:21, "Mihai N."<nmihai_year_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >>>> This newsgroup has been more than a "forum" to me. I have life long >>>> friends >>>> from participation here like you, Joe, G, Ajay, Mihai, all the other >>>> Davids, >>>> Scott, many of whom I've met in person and shared cheesecake. Our >>>> camaraderie here has grown beyond just answering tech questions. In the >>>> midst of it all we've become friends. I think we will stay friends :o) but >>>> I will miss this kind of banter and the chance to talk about other things >>>> besides the answer to the immediate question at hand. >>> >>> I really hope we will manage to keep the connection alive :-) >>> It was really nice hangin out with all of you, virtualy and in reality. >>> >>>> support) and it's easy to point to them using an HTML link. We are pretty >>>> tech-savvy so we have a different perspective, but if you consider someone >>>> like my wife looking for an answer she'd be much more comfortable with a >>>> browser interface. I'm sure they considered all of this in the decision >>>> process. >>> >>> But I guess your wife is not a MFC programmer. >>> While I can buy the argument of non-geeks using the forums for Office, >>> or even Express, I would be very worried to hear that someone who >>> claims to be a programmer is puzzled by newsgroups. >>> >>> But hey, it is what it is :-) >>> >>> -- >>> Mihai Nita [Microsoft MVP, Visual C++]http://www.mihai-nita.net >>> ------------------------------------------ >>> Replace _year_ with _ to get the real email >> >> Yes, lately MS has been more worried about making things easier for >> beginners or non-techies, than for experts. And also more worried >> about "sellability" of their products, instead of usability. >> Only that can explain the non-customizable Office ribbon, the VS IDE, >> the move from newsgroups to forums... They look great in screenshots >> and at first they are easier. But in the long run, you are stuck with >> those tools for beginners. > >But AFAIK developers aren't normal users... so IMHO if you can program >something you can configure a news reader. With this point of view of >making everything easy for everyone at the same level (and without >consulting), MS is putting in the same bag developers and grandmothers >(well, at least in my case, my grandmothers don't understand a computer :-P > >Regards Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP] email: newcomer(a)flounder.com Web: http://www.flounder.com MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
From: Joseph M. Newcomer on 19 Jun 2010 11:02 You haven't lived until you've had to do tech support, in the days before worldwide low-cost calling, with your client's Best Customer, in Sweden. He spoke very poor English, but in all ways was superior to my non-existent Swedish. I had to explain to him, over the phone, with the serious language barrier, how to use edlin (which I had never used, so I was frantically reading the manual and trying things out) to edit autoexec.bat to change the PATH variable so he could use our code, but in a way that did not interfere with the OTHER program that critically depended on PATH. And fit the whole thing into the 128-character PATH limit that MS-DOS had. A five-hour phone call. $$$$$$$$. And people wonder why I rail against ever depending on PATH! joe On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:13:31 -0700, "David Ching" <dc(a)remove-this.dcsoft.com> wrote: >"r norman" <r_s_norman(a)comcast.net> wrote in message >news:u8m1161otvchmdoh88ec55hcji968dq7m1(a)4ax.com... >> I guess you should blame Borland for developing Turbo Pascal, a >> programming tool with a graphics oriented interface. That made us all >> lazy and now we just click and drag instead of programming and rely on >> the compiler to find our errors (syntactic ones, at least). We >> should all go back to Edlin and learn how to do things for ourselves! >> > ><smile> Line oriented editors... <shudder> > >But Microsoft QuickBASIC had a mouse interface (and even integrated >debugger) before Borland's did.... > >-- David > Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP] email: newcomer(a)flounder.com Web: http://www.flounder.com MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
From: Stephen Wolstenholme on 19 Jun 2010 11:21 On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 11:02:46 -0400, Joseph M. Newcomer <newcomer(a)flounder.com> wrote: >You haven't lived until you've had to do tech support, in the days before worldwide >low-cost calling, with your client's Best Customer, in Sweden. He spoke very poor >English, but in all ways was superior to my non-existent Swedish. I had to explain to >him, over the phone, with the serious language barrier, how to use edlin (which I had >never used, so I was frantically reading the manual and trying things out) to edit >autoexec.bat to change the PATH variable so he could use our code, but in a way that did >not interfere with the OTHER program that critically depended on PATH. And fit the whole >thing into the 128-character PATH limit that MS-DOS had. A five-hour phone call. >$$$$$$$$. And people wonder why I rail against ever depending on PATH! > joe Sometimes it is less of a problem to visit the customer than try to explain something on the phone. You could have had a short "vacation" in Sweden after a five minute edlin demo. Steve -- Neural Planner Software Ltd www.NPSL1.com EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. www.easynn.com SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com
From: Joseph M. Newcomer on 19 Jun 2010 15:50 Given the cost of the phone call, it really would have been cheaper to fly me to Sweden! joe On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:21:00 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme <steve(a)tropheus.demon.co.uk> wrote: >On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 11:02:46 -0400, Joseph M. Newcomer ><newcomer(a)flounder.com> wrote: > >>You haven't lived until you've had to do tech support, in the days before worldwide >>low-cost calling, with your client's Best Customer, in Sweden. He spoke very poor >>English, but in all ways was superior to my non-existent Swedish. I had to explain to >>him, over the phone, with the serious language barrier, how to use edlin (which I had >>never used, so I was frantically reading the manual and trying things out) to edit >>autoexec.bat to change the PATH variable so he could use our code, but in a way that did >>not interfere with the OTHER program that critically depended on PATH. And fit the whole >>thing into the 128-character PATH limit that MS-DOS had. A five-hour phone call. >>$$$$$$$$. And people wonder why I rail against ever depending on PATH! >> joe > >Sometimes it is less of a problem to visit the customer than try to >explain something on the phone. You could have had a short "vacation" >in Sweden after a five minute edlin demo. > >Steve Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP] email: newcomer(a)flounder.com Web: http://www.flounder.com MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
From: Joseph M. Newcomer on 19 Jun 2010 15:56
I just finished a hilarious book, "In Search of Stupidity", written by someone who was the Wordstar product marketing manager. WordStar failed because of terminal stupidity, mostly of the programmers. Did you know that WordPerfect insisted that all coding be in assembly code? How incredibly stupid can one become and still remember how to breathe without coaching? One of the reasons it couldn't compete with MSWord was that it took too much effort to add things to it. The book documents most of the colossal failures of the 1980s and 1990s. Everyone at Microsoft should read it. Microsoft succeeded partly because they did most things right, and mostly because their competitors did everything wrong. But the current directions Microsoft is taking, and the behavior they are exhibiting, begin to look like the stories of how to guarantee failure (screw your developers, for example, which is what killed Novell, according to his story. Like, discontinue newsgroups in favor of Web forums written by unsupervised children. Get rid of all the features that made VS6 so easy to use. Remove the ability to customize Office. We see more and more of this every day. It Does Not Bode Well). On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:30:25 -0700, "Tom Serface" <tom(a)camaswood.com> wrote: > >Ah WordStar. Everyone's second favorite word processor. Those were the >days. > >Tom > >"r norman" <r_s_norman(a)comcast.net> wrote in message >news:u8m1161otvchmdoh88ec55hcji968dq7m1(a)4ax.com... > >> OK, we can go back to MASM and WordStar and if I mention the keypunch >> and submitting decks of cards hoping for less than 12 hour turnaround >> time I would be revealing my age. >> Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP] email: newcomer(a)flounder.com Web: http://www.flounder.com MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm |