The Worst
10. Google Search. Google is one of those rare businesses that has the luxury of dabbling in a lot of different things even when they don't make much sense, financial or otherwise. And while most of these ideas have faded into obscurity or floundered completely, Google's mainstay has persevered. There's no disputing that after all these years Google's search is still king. But it's astounding accuracy is only part of the reason. One of Google's most compelling features has always been, er, it's lack of features. Let's face it, when you're searching through billions of results simplicity becomes more than a lofty design goal, it's a basic necessity. So why Google has abandoned this in favor of kitschy, distracting crap like Instant search and rollover previews is a big mystery to me.
9. Facebook. In spite of garnering him Time Magazine's Person of the Year award, inspiring a feature film, and (supposedly) attracting over 500 million users, Zuckerberg's high school contact management tool is rife with problems. If you weren't too busy playing Mafia Wars or trying to convince that fourteen year old FBI agent to meet you at the Super8 next to the long distance bus terminal, you might have noticed that Facebook's primary business seems to be compromising your privacy and providing intel to computer-savvy larcenists.
8. Basecamp. Is 37Signals even still in business?
7. Microsoft Office 2010. Reed Schaffner's three step recipe for success: 1) Spend twenty years and a few hundred million dollars building a very capable and mature commercial product. 2) Gain massive, widespread acceptance by becoming the world's corporate standard and the PC application of record for even the most unexpected users, like Haqqani field operatives and the Amish. 3) Completely change everything around so that nobody has a fucking clue how to get anything done.
6. Al Gore. After having invented the Internet, I would've expected much more from our former VP. It seems that getting outed for selling the world ninety-four minutes of junk science and political propaganda disguised as a documentary, a bizarre public divorce, and assaulting a hooker have just sucked the innovative wind from his sails.
5. PHP. I'm sorry but PHP is, and has always been, an inferior programming language and has far outlived it's useful life. More capable, professionally engineered platforms like Java, Python, and MS.NET have worked fruitfully for years to eradicate the interpreted, spaghetti mess that defines PHP, and it's continued appeal baffles the hell out of me.
4. Team Foundation Server. And you thought all those boxes of bulky punch cards were hard to manage. Granted, TFS might not be the worst version control system ever conceived (though it actually might be), it's prototypical Microsoft bloatware. It's slow, unstable, hard to use, expensive, client platform specific, has loads of features but doesn't do any one thing particularly well, and offers very little in the way of meaningful integration options largely due to its archaic licensing. And it's getting worse with every release.
3. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010. From a developer's perspective SharePoint has got to be, without question, Microsoft's biggest blunder ever. I'll concede that MOSS 2010 is leaps-and-bounds better than the 2007 version, because, how could it possibly be any worse? Still, no one I've ever asked at MCS can quantify what exactly SharePoint is, and if you've ever worked with it, you'll understand why. Need a CMS? No problem, that'll be $45,000 and you'll get an enterprise document management system and a bunch of other crap you don't need along with it. Need a document management system? No problem, that'll be $45,000 and you'll get a CMS and a bunch of other crap you don't need along with it. Wait, you want to customize it? Well, ummm, there's this small problem...
2. Offshoring. Try to follow me on this one. You live in a country where the economy is sinking, evidenced by the ten percent unemployment rate, a widespread decline in GDP, and burgeoning political unrest. Highly educated, skilled citizen workers are fighting over jobs mopping out truck stop toilets and serving scalding hot feces at airport Starbucks, all while captains of industry continue to hire guest worker visa holders at an alarming rate and send multi-million-dollar projects overseas. Forget the fact that offshoring almost always fails to deliver and that the cost savings are negligible if not completely absent. The basic tenet itself is akin to treason and should be punishable by summary execution, preferably live on prime-time television or during the Superbowl halftime show.
1. iTunes. After ten-plus versions and a market capitalization of $300 billion, you'd think that Apple would finally get this one right. Yet iTunes continues to be one of the all-time worst pieces of desktop software available. Unfortunately, it's indicative of Apple's commitment to stifling arrogance and lack of long-term vision, shortcomings that have plagued it (at least once to the point of near extinction) for nearly forty years. And it's a real shame because I love my iPod, even if Jobs did steal the idea from the janitor.
The Best
10. The Typographic Desk Reference. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that TDR author Theodore Rosendorf has been a good friend of mine for years, many of them in which I have been resigned as audience to the tyrannical gospel of all things type. But the simple fact is that reading his book and understanding the mechanics and relative importance of typography to user experience has hands down made me a better software developer.
9. Stack Overflow. There are literally thousands of developer-focused message boards, forums, web-based news readers, documentation libraries, and help sites out on the Internet, and almost all of them are heaps of smoldering garbage. Yet, somehow, amidst an incredibly saturated market, Fog Creek manages to successfully launch a new forum that's well designed, easy to use, and instantly popular. And somehow said forum almost always has the answer you're looking for and it's correct, or there's someone hanging around willing to give it in short order.
8. Amazon Web Services. I still find it wildly improbable that the world's largest bookstore (!) also managed to develop and release to the public one of the world's largest and most capable cloud computing platforms to date, but here we are. Last year saw some impressive additions to the product suite, including cloud-based MySQL, sticky load balancing, and PCI certification (a HUGE first). Amazon is light years ahead of the competition in this area both in cost and features, and it seems highly unlikely that Microsoft's Azure or the Rackspace Cloud will ever catch up.
7. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. One thing that Microsoft consistently gets right is integrated development environments. VS2010 is no exception. It's fast, stable, highly extensible, is truly integrated (with all kinds of stuff), and if you're developing for the Windows platform, it's worth every penny.
6. CodePlex. I'm a big fan of open source software. I use more OSS applications on a daily basis than I can readily count, each of which has contributed in some small way to my own personal success. In an effort to return the favor I've contributed back to these where I could, and have spiked a few projects of my own. Anyways, it used to be that the terms open source and SourceForge were ubiquitous. SourceForge gradually grew to the point that it was terribly unusable, encouraging some healthy competition. One of the few that survived long enough to be noticed, CodePlex initially left a lot be be desired, particularly when compared to the relatively mature and eventually redesigned SourceForge. It still has a ways to go. But the sheer volume of quality projects that have surfaced at there in the last twelve months is impressive, as is the speed at which the CodePlex team is adding new features to the site without destroying it's usability.
5. Angry Birds. Drop two bucks for Angry Birds and you'll never have to fumble with a dirty newspaper or play footsie with a homosexual politician in the crapper again, guaranteed.
4. Resharper. There are two things that I can't work without: dual displays and Resharper (wait, is that three things?) As developer productivity tools go, Resharper may very well be the most useful one ever built. Take the time to learn how to use it effectively and you will see your code quality and speed go up and your bug count go down. You'll also be frustrated beyond all belief the next time you have to work in an environment where it's not available or when you have a teammate who refuses to use it (fire him immediately).
3. Craigslist. No doubt I lost a lot of respect for Buckmaster et al when Craigslist caved on free speech and their Adult Services section, but since I don't frequently recruit prostitutes to murder online I'm not really all that affected. Besides, Craigslist's real merit isn't the waning selection of john-rolling, junkie hookers or fat-guy penis photos. It's the unapologetic, almost painful simplicity of the site. In terms of fundamentalist usability Craigslist is about as good as it gets, and the folks in San Francisco have stayed true to that mission, criticisms be damned.
2. Ford. I've always been a big fan of foreign cars. I drive a Nissan. And it will probably be the last foreign car I ever own, except maybe for the compulsory Buggati when Fox buys the rights to turn my blog into a doomed sitcom featuring a bunch of shitty actors and what's his face from Star Trek. Simple fact is, Ford's new cars are really, really nice. Oh yeah, and they didn't take a big government subsidy (that's your money, in case you didn't know) that will never be repaid (to you) to stay in business AND they turned a respectable profit in a downticking economy.
1. Email. Like it or not, email is still the Internet's true killer app. Sure the clients will change, the protocols will change, the application may change, but email's underlying fundamental concept hasn't changed since it's advent in 1965.
klc;
9. Facebook. In spite of garnering him Time Magazine's Person of the Year award, inspiring a feature film, and (supposedly) attracting over 500 million users, Zuckerberg's high school contact management tool is rife with problems. If you weren't too busy playing Mafia Wars or trying to convince that fourteen year old FBI agent to meet you at the Super8 next to the long distance bus terminal, you might have noticed that Facebook's primary business seems to be compromising your privacy and providing intel to computer-savvy larcenists.
8. Basecamp. Is 37Signals even still in business?
7. Microsoft Office 2010. Reed Schaffner's three step recipe for success: 1) Spend twenty years and a few hundred million dollars building a very capable and mature commercial product. 2) Gain massive, widespread acceptance by becoming the world's corporate standard and the PC application of record for even the most unexpected users, like Haqqani field operatives and the Amish. 3) Completely change everything around so that nobody has a fucking clue how to get anything done.
6. Al Gore. After having invented the Internet, I would've expected much more from our former VP. It seems that getting outed for selling the world ninety-four minutes of junk science and political propaganda disguised as a documentary, a bizarre public divorce, and assaulting a hooker have just sucked the innovative wind from his sails.
5. PHP. I'm sorry but PHP is, and has always been, an inferior programming language and has far outlived it's useful life. More capable, professionally engineered platforms like Java, Python, and MS.NET have worked fruitfully for years to eradicate the interpreted, spaghetti mess that defines PHP, and it's continued appeal baffles the hell out of me.
4. Team Foundation Server. And you thought all those boxes of bulky punch cards were hard to manage. Granted, TFS might not be the worst version control system ever conceived (though it actually might be), it's prototypical Microsoft bloatware. It's slow, unstable, hard to use, expensive, client platform specific, has loads of features but doesn't do any one thing particularly well, and offers very little in the way of meaningful integration options largely due to its archaic licensing. And it's getting worse with every release.
3. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010. From a developer's perspective SharePoint has got to be, without question, Microsoft's biggest blunder ever. I'll concede that MOSS 2010 is leaps-and-bounds better than the 2007 version, because, how could it possibly be any worse? Still, no one I've ever asked at MCS can quantify what exactly SharePoint is, and if you've ever worked with it, you'll understand why. Need a CMS? No problem, that'll be $45,000 and you'll get an enterprise document management system and a bunch of other crap you don't need along with it. Need a document management system? No problem, that'll be $45,000 and you'll get a CMS and a bunch of other crap you don't need along with it. Wait, you want to customize it? Well, ummm, there's this small problem...
2. Offshoring. Try to follow me on this one. You live in a country where the economy is sinking, evidenced by the ten percent unemployment rate, a widespread decline in GDP, and burgeoning political unrest. Highly educated, skilled citizen workers are fighting over jobs mopping out truck stop toilets and serving scalding hot feces at airport Starbucks, all while captains of industry continue to hire guest worker visa holders at an alarming rate and send multi-million-dollar projects overseas. Forget the fact that offshoring almost always fails to deliver and that the cost savings are negligible if not completely absent. The basic tenet itself is akin to treason and should be punishable by summary execution, preferably live on prime-time television or during the Superbowl halftime show.
1. iTunes. After ten-plus versions and a market capitalization of $300 billion, you'd think that Apple would finally get this one right. Yet iTunes continues to be one of the all-time worst pieces of desktop software available. Unfortunately, it's indicative of Apple's commitment to stifling arrogance and lack of long-term vision, shortcomings that have plagued it (at least once to the point of near extinction) for nearly forty years. And it's a real shame because I love my iPod, even if Jobs did steal the idea from the janitor.
The Best
10. The Typographic Desk Reference. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that TDR author Theodore Rosendorf has been a good friend of mine for years, many of them in which I have been resigned as audience to the tyrannical gospel of all things type. But the simple fact is that reading his book and understanding the mechanics and relative importance of typography to user experience has hands down made me a better software developer.
9. Stack Overflow. There are literally thousands of developer-focused message boards, forums, web-based news readers, documentation libraries, and help sites out on the Internet, and almost all of them are heaps of smoldering garbage. Yet, somehow, amidst an incredibly saturated market, Fog Creek manages to successfully launch a new forum that's well designed, easy to use, and instantly popular. And somehow said forum almost always has the answer you're looking for and it's correct, or there's someone hanging around willing to give it in short order.
8. Amazon Web Services. I still find it wildly improbable that the world's largest bookstore (!) also managed to develop and release to the public one of the world's largest and most capable cloud computing platforms to date, but here we are. Last year saw some impressive additions to the product suite, including cloud-based MySQL, sticky load balancing, and PCI certification (a HUGE first). Amazon is light years ahead of the competition in this area both in cost and features, and it seems highly unlikely that Microsoft's Azure or the Rackspace Cloud will ever catch up.
7. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. One thing that Microsoft consistently gets right is integrated development environments. VS2010 is no exception. It's fast, stable, highly extensible, is truly integrated (with all kinds of stuff), and if you're developing for the Windows platform, it's worth every penny.
6. CodePlex. I'm a big fan of open source software. I use more OSS applications on a daily basis than I can readily count, each of which has contributed in some small way to my own personal success. In an effort to return the favor I've contributed back to these where I could, and have spiked a few projects of my own. Anyways, it used to be that the terms open source and SourceForge were ubiquitous. SourceForge gradually grew to the point that it was terribly unusable, encouraging some healthy competition. One of the few that survived long enough to be noticed, CodePlex initially left a lot be be desired, particularly when compared to the relatively mature and eventually redesigned SourceForge. It still has a ways to go. But the sheer volume of quality projects that have surfaced at there in the last twelve months is impressive, as is the speed at which the CodePlex team is adding new features to the site without destroying it's usability.
5. Angry Birds. Drop two bucks for Angry Birds and you'll never have to fumble with a dirty newspaper or play footsie with a homosexual politician in the crapper again, guaranteed.
4. Resharper. There are two things that I can't work without: dual displays and Resharper (wait, is that three things?) As developer productivity tools go, Resharper may very well be the most useful one ever built. Take the time to learn how to use it effectively and you will see your code quality and speed go up and your bug count go down. You'll also be frustrated beyond all belief the next time you have to work in an environment where it's not available or when you have a teammate who refuses to use it (fire him immediately).
3. Craigslist. No doubt I lost a lot of respect for Buckmaster et al when Craigslist caved on free speech and their Adult Services section, but since I don't frequently recruit prostitutes to murder online I'm not really all that affected. Besides, Craigslist's real merit isn't the waning selection of john-rolling, junkie hookers or fat-guy penis photos. It's the unapologetic, almost painful simplicity of the site. In terms of fundamentalist usability Craigslist is about as good as it gets, and the folks in San Francisco have stayed true to that mission, criticisms be damned.
2. Ford. I've always been a big fan of foreign cars. I drive a Nissan. And it will probably be the last foreign car I ever own, except maybe for the compulsory Buggati when Fox buys the rights to turn my blog into a doomed sitcom featuring a bunch of shitty actors and what's his face from Star Trek. Simple fact is, Ford's new cars are really, really nice. Oh yeah, and they didn't take a big government subsidy (that's your money, in case you didn't know) that will never be repaid (to you) to stay in business AND they turned a respectable profit in a downticking economy.
1. Email. Like it or not, email is still the Internet's true killer app. Sure the clients will change, the protocols will change, the application may change, but email's underlying fundamental concept hasn't changed since it's advent in 1965.
klc;
1 comments:
You speak the truth about the birds.
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