OT: MS Ignorance (was Re: Microsoft Virus)

[Simon Bowring]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2000 08:37:37 -0700 (PDT), Kelley Cook wrote:

>There are obviously a bunch of moron managers at Microsoft.  No
>self-respecting programmer would ever think that those were a good
>idea.

Part of the problem is that MS takes the vast majority of its 
programmers from "kindergarten" and maintains them in an MS-only 
culture so they are insulated from the rest of the computer 
industry, rather than hiring experienced staff with experience 
of other platforms and cultures. The result is that the bulk 
of their programmers are immune from all the lessons learned 
in the past or on other platforms - this is why they are always 
"inventing" things that were actually invented 20 years ago.

The leaked MS "Halloween" report about linux demonstrated their
ignorance - they were "suprised" at what it could do, despite
it being basically a unix, much like all other unixes which
have a 30 year pedigree and are well understood by the inductry
at large.

Note that NT was largely developed by Dave Cutler (I think the name's 
correct) and a group of his cronies that defected from DEC - his 
group allegedly wouldn't let any "MS" programmers near the kernel 
etc until it was "finished".

Simon