leaking pen <[email protected]> wrote: I've never heard anyone malign his programming skills. moral character, > visual design skills, absolutely, but never his coding chops. >
I believe I have seen jealous people attack his programming skills as well. People often denigrate Microsoft as a whole. I feel kind of sorry for them in because they are stuck with the legacy problem. They have to write kludgy software to keep it backwards compatible. People who are highly successful often have their biographies cleaned up by posterity. Edison in particular was considered a saint in the 1930s and 40s, in the movie portrayal, for example. Nowadays the pendulum has swung the other way. Many people criticize him or claim that he did not invent things, or that he stole things from Tesla. I have read many biographies of Edison and also his notebooks and papers online. (http://edison.rutgers.edu/) He was a first-class genius. I have no doubt he invented a great deal. He had a magic touch when it came to production. He understood what the customer needed and wanted. He was magnificent. The thing is, he was also a jerk in many ways. He resembled Steve Jobs or Rossi in that he was a monomaniac. He was exploitative. He ignored his wife and children. Yes, he was nice in some ways, to some people, and loyal to his workers, and an inspiration to his workers. But he was a sharp dealer. He did not pay his bills. He paid people a pittance and hired Bowery bums to work in his factories to save a nickel. He drove investors crazy. He was like anyone else, a mixture of good and bad. Regarding Tesla and Edison, when Tesla's laboratory burned down and he lost everything late in life, Edison immediately set him up in his own lab and gave him whatever equipment he needed, gratis. - Jed
