On 20 May 2016, at 20:03, Fred Cisin <[email protected]> wrote: >> I don't know if that was a specific market ploy based on Moore's Law, > > an actually quite smart move, . . . > >> or just the generally accepted practice of getting an initial version >> with the API working any which way, then refactoring to improve >> performance/correctness in later versions. > > For decades, I used to rant that the biggest problem with Microsoft software > was that they treated their programmers "too well". > > That if Microsoft programmer had space problems, they would immediately > replace his machine with one with more RAM and bigger drive, and he wouldn't > learn to be memory or disk space efficient. > > That if his programs were too slow, that they would immediately replace his > machine with a faster one, and he would never learn to write fast or > efficient code. > > If there was ever a hardware problem, they would immediately replace the > machine. Accordingly, Microsoft programmers NEVER actually experienced > hardware issues, and had to IMAGINE what disk errors, etc. would be like, > resulting in software that couldn't properly handle them when they happened. > For exaample, when SMARTDRV was causing MANY problems with write-caching > (TOTAL failure and data loss if even a minor disk error occurs), Microsoft > was in denial, and couldn't understand that their software needed to be able > to recover, or at least sanely handle the situation when an error occurred. > They did not CARE ("well, that's a hardware problem, not out problem.") that > a single bad sector (unfound by SPINRITE) in the disk space occupied by the > WINGBATS font, totally prevented installation of Windoze 3.10. > [cf. "disk compression problems" due to SMARTDRV, and their need to replace > DOS6.00 with 6.20] > > > I used to rant that if Microsoft were to "trade machines with us", and give > their programmers current or old, rather than newest, machines, that their > programmers might finally learn how to write robust compact fast software.
The rumour was that Bill Gates insisted programmers used 386's when writing Windows '95, although I'm struggling to find a single shred of evidence supporting this statement, so it may be mis-remembered fantasy. -Austin.
