From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <3D52ABC3.8020203@nas.com> From: Jack Johnson User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.0+) Gecko/20020506 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] a bug in freopen References: <80ce6d908233d7814aadd0b75c098154@plan9.bell-labs.com>, <3D515061.1070900@nas.com> <3D527DE2.B38A88DE@null.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 10:34:59 -0700 Topicbox-Message-UUID: d924652e-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Douglas A. Gwyn wrote: > Jack Johnson wrote: >>If only Microsoft would do that. > ? In which direction do you think they err? Too much testing or > too little? Sorry, Douglas (and everyone). It was a bad pun run amok. But, giving it some pre-coffee thought, they construct solutions to perceived problems, which is a great business model. I feel sometimes a problem is not best solved by adding a new solution but by taking away an old problem. Maybe not the best way to run a software development firm, but then again, I don't have that worry. So, in that respect, I think they probably do more than adequate testing to ensure their product solves the problem they intended to fix (and thus I damn their effort with faint praise). When going through their recruitment process, I was told that (in the group for which I was interviewing), the standard procedure was to spend 24-36 months developing a new release, then releasing a service pack roughly once every 6 months. After 2-3 service packs, they'd determine the new features they wanted in the next release, and go through the cycle again. The service packs are released to fix bugs and add features as requested by their largest vendors, and working down from there. I was appalled at the idea that the working model was based on fixing bugs after the release, that it was the expected norm, and that new releases were not based on making the product qualitiatively (or hell, quantitatively) better but firmly on adding new features, for which any new bugs (that got through the testing cycle) would be worked out at a later date. Several times. Now, I understand all software has bugs, and what a nightmare it must be to manage 20,000 developers and n million lines of code, but if you want an edict from Bill Gates, why not "Just One Service Pack"? If the standard procedure is to allow some bugs to be fixed post-production, it seems no wonder that they've had certain difficulties with security. ---- Sorry for the rant. The bad pun may have been better. -Jack P.S. For the curious, I chose not to write VB script for a living, and my checkbook resents it wholeheartedly.