Re: Programming project required

From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Tue Jan 23 2001 - 13:03:06 MST


Justin Corwin wrote:

> I can dislike many of the decisions Gates makes. but i have to respect both
> his business acumen, and his programming skills(expanded through his company

He has no programming skills worth mentioning. He's a suit who has been at
the right place at the right time. I'll grant you he's a good businessman,
and he had a good hand when hiring initial set of people.

I do not care about Gates in particular, but the Redmond phenomenon is Evil
with a capital E. It has nuked lots of promising IT branches, substituting
them with zombieware. Not to mention hiring top talent, and sending them down
to the pit, after subjecting them to a frontal lobotomy.

> and resources(peons) of course). as something of a pragmaticist, i must
> point out that this is a man who is DOING things, and on a scale unheard of

I know that large sections of IT industry are existing as Redmond scavengers.
They're making a living fixing stuff which had no business being broken in
the first place. If you think that's admirable, I think you're rather
warped.

> for any other entity. the man has donated more money than has EVER been
> donated to Educational purposes before in a single sitting. as a student, i
> can appreciate that.

He throws his money around indiscriminately, or, worse, by supporting causes
which help MS.

Apart from that, the amount of damage the man and company have inflicted upon
the world is unfixable in any amount of $$$s. IBM/Intel/Microsoft working
together have created a reality which is rather far from being optimal. If you
judge them, you're comparing merely stuff which currently exists, and not seeing
the alternative branches which would now exist if not for a number of specific
decisions, which can be traced back to the year 1978.

It should be given some thought, why so many computer people have such a strong
reaction towards Redmond. Hint: sour grapes it ain't.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:24 MDT