Emperor's Nudity Remarked
Published April 11, 2005
Well, I admit to hating Microsoft (more or less). Still, I find it hard to point the finger at them on this one. Microsoft provides a service to developers, who often abuse it. Programs that do not uninstall well probably do not provide the information Windows requires to use the uninstaller service. Microsoft could, I suppose, police this, but think of the uproar that would cause. I see lawsuits for restraint of trade.Just this once, I don't blame Microsoft. The rest of the stuff is a result of monopolistic arrogance, though.
Those moles can be subtle.
Pogue himself eventually appeared and gave a marvellously apt retort:
If Microsoft is not responsible here, then how come uninstalling from Mac OS X is an effortless piece of cake?You just drag the app to the Trash. Period.
It's about the DESIGN OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM.
Microsoft left uninstallations open to the developers, sure, but it's had, what, 20 years now to correct that mistake?
In discussions of MS product deficiencies, some MS lackey often pipes up to announce that the next-generation product takes care of all the problems. This discussion was no exception:
You may or may not be familiar with the Microsoft strategy for easing all this. It is called "dot net." Essentially it puts another level of software between programs and the operating system. This layer has extensive checks built-in and makes lots of things simpler for both the software maker and ultimately the user. It makes playing by its rules extremely attractive. (Among other features it purportedly will end "dll hell".)
Innocent neophytes, in their first decade of computer use, are liable to be gulled by such propaganda. They'll naively go and get that next-generation product and spend 200 hours mastering it — only to learn that it does not solve the problems (and typically introduces new ones).
But Pogue was prepared. His rebuttal to the "dot net" technobabble confirmed him as the little guy's champion:
But I already have .NET installed on my PC--a huge, seething glop of software, hundreds of megabytes.It did nothing for my case of DLL hell.
Thank you, David Pogue!
More on Microsoft: The Independent Institute.
David Pogue's website: www.davidpogue.com.
- Emperor's Nudity Remarked
- Published: April 11, 2005
- Type:
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Software
- Writer: Uriel Wittenberg
- Uriel Wittenberg's BC Writer page
- Uriel Wittenberg's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
the .net comment was particularly funny.
great solultion to bad software...wrap it in an even heavier layer of more software.
As someone who has worked with both Mac and PC, I would have to agree that Macs side-step a lot of the problems seen in Windows.
On the other hand, they also have problems with some common stuff. (If I had a nickel for every attached eMail file my Mac-dedicated friend Dave told me he couldn't see, I'd have a szit-load of nickels!)
Same thing holds true with Linux and Unix and other operating systems. You pays yer money, and you takes yer choice...
being a Fan of David Pogue's stuff for quite the number of years..it was good to see him tee off this way..
i also am in a dual boot household..i went from an Amiga 500 to a 386 PC, next computer was a Mac and kept with them for years ...my better half being into graphic design for 10 years...
i went with 2 computers when i needed to learn XP for work, since the game center LANs were going to be using it, while our servers were Linux builds...
while XP is by far my favorite flavor of n Windows...there are sO many problems inherent in the OS that the strange "unistall" difficulties are merely the surface...
Apple tends ot avoid a lot fo this by requiring their software makers to adhere to a very strict code fo standers...from the way a program installs, to the look and feel as well as function of the Interface and beyond
each has it's strength's and weaknesses
but for Bloat and obscurity..nothing tops Windows...
nuff said?
Excelsior!
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/28019)
Pretty funny stuff. A nice shortening of the discussions highpoints.
There are still some odd things left if you uninstall a program in Macs. But normally these are in only two folders and are fairly easy to determine where they go.
Pogue is a guy who used to write for MacWorld but has affection for both PC-Mac. Not me. I've never sent my Mac in for repair; never wondered what the hell happened there. I did have to erase everything on my work disk once, but that wasn't my fault (I was assured)
And OSX has elimnated program crashes completelty. One program dies, you force quit it and the computer runs as before.
Of course, it's all down to what you started with and I started with Macs in 1995.