Engineers really know their stuff

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SteveHGraham
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by SteveHGraham »

Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
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NP317
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by NP317 »

Tells you how bad MS is, since they don't know the difference between Engineers and programmers...
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SteveHGraham
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by SteveHGraham »

I take it ME's enjoy looking down on software engineers. Is that really necessary? Isn't it enough to look down on them just because they work for Microsoft?
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
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NP317
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by NP317 »

Assuming you were referring to me, No, I do not look down at software engineers.
I was commenting on MS, only.
I was raised by a computer pioneer, and have two talented software creating sons.
Please reboot your thinking. :lol:
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warmstrong1955
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by warmstrong1955 »

Some of the monthly patches, have been worse than you know, to some people’s programs. Wasn’t but a few months ago, they crashed most everybody's anti-virus with an update patch. Avira and I think it was Kaperskey was the other one.
Been some conflicts that were a real pain I hear.

My oldest son worked for the MS gaming division....I forget what they are called. He went there after MS bought out Bungie where he was working. (The creators of Halo)
He couldn’t take it, too many stupid people, and quit to go work for another game maker.

Best to shut off the updates, and wait for Woody to say they are clear to install. It’s worked for me for several years.
Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.
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NP317
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by NP317 »

Both my sons worked for MS. One for Bungie post-buyout, the other for MS Fight Simulator.
The Bungie son moved to a competitor and remains totally happy.
The Flight simulator son, being a pilot, couldn't stand the poor way the MS planes flew and he's now a principe with X-Plane,
which uses true physics to fly planes through real-time calculations. He is their Reality Connection.

My father managed the development of the first banking computer "ERMA" for Bank of Italy (America), while at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA.
I remember touring the multi-quonset hut computer while it was being developed in the late 1950s.
Then he founded the Univ. of Washington (Seattle) Computer Science College. He never owned a personal computer until he retired.
Then he bought Apple Macs, knowing their underlying software was much more robust (and simple) than Windows.
And still is by my experience.
Of course I seldom update my software, until it's time for major system upgrades. Then it all gets done together, phone included.
Fun life.
I prefer building and operating steam locomotives...
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Steggy
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by Steggy »

Good thing we don't have Windows running airliners' flight computers. The NTSB would have to increase its staff tenfold and work around the clock seven days a week to investigate all the crashes that would occur.

Hmm...I wonder if the Boeing 737 MAX8's problems are due to a recent Windows upgrade? :shock:

Seriously, those of us who have been in the computer industry since the days when Bill Gates was a sniveling eighth-grader know better than to rely on anything produced by Microsoft. The company has never produced a solid product and in more than a few cases, has resorted to stealing technology to make up for a lack of originality and aptness of thought—as well as a lack of good software engineering. It's not for nothing that the majority of servers that are attached to the Internet are not running Windows anything. They can't afford the risks of a poorly-designed operating system whose security model has more holes than a colander.
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earlgo
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by earlgo »

My son graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in Computer Engineering. He spent a lot of time and money for that. He has been at MS for 20 years. He can and does do programming as a part of his job, but MS can hire a bazillion (1e^27) programmers from the far and middle east to do the grunt work. He calls the nearest Canadian city Hongcouver for a reason. His course work included chip design, circuit design, and other hardware related stuff I never understood, (because I am an inconsequential ME).
I am sure he would be miffed if he were called a programmer.
On another note, about 6 weeks ago, MS updated my win10 and in the process lost my user profile so I could log in, but all my files and outlook email messages were unavailable. It took 5 hours, no exaggeration, spread out over 2 days, for the MS phone support to get me back to where I could re load everything and then I had no contacts, etc. In the course of the conversations, I asked if they had done this before, and they said that this is all they had done for weeks. Humph!
--earlgo
Before you do anything, you must do something else first. - Washington's principle.
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Steggy
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by Steggy »

John Hasler wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 8:33 pmSteveHGraham writes:
> It is ASTOUNDING that Microsoft is this inept.

They don't need to be ept, since almost everyone believes that they have no choice but to use Microsoft software no matter how bad it is. Most people also don't know how bad it is, having never seen anything else.
I started professionally with computers in 1970 and up until 1981, could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I had seen a mini or mainframe system crash due solely to software issues. After 1981, which is when businesses started using the IBM PC running on MS-DOS 1.0 (full disclosure: Microsoft did not "invent" MS-DOS—the origins of DOS were at Seattle Computer Products) computers would crash with distressing regularity. It wasn't until MS-DOS 5.0 that the problem started to abate.

I have a client whose mail server runs Linux and recently passed three years of continuous uptime. That's three years without being rebooted. I have never seen anything running Windows stay up for more four months without a restart. Windows has lots of problems with memory leaks and occasional wild writes to disk, which is why crashes occur and files get corrupted. The only "cure" for that is a reboot.

As you say, most people haven't a clue as to just how cruddy Windows really is.
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SteveHGraham
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by SteveHGraham »

One of the most beautiful things about Windows 10 is that it gets rid of programs it doesn't like, without asking permission. As bad engineering goes, that is masterful. One day you have an old program you like. The next day, it's gone. Awesome.

It's a wonderful foretaste of the days when we will look back and say Orwell was an optimist.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
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warmstrong1955
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by warmstrong1955 »

I haven’t had any programs evaporate, but I have read about Win 10 doing that.
Both Win 10 computers we have, I immediately shut off automatic updates when I got them, so that may be the reason I’ve not had it happen to me.
I had to search how to do that by searching the net a bit. It varies by version....like 1803, 1809 now 1903. It’s not like Win 7, where you can just ‘turn off automatic updates’. Too easy for the peasants to buck the MS Gods.....
MS releases patches monthly, and generally the first Tuesday of each month. Then, using us peasants as guinea pigs, they start fixing all the bugs that screw stuff up, as they find out what they messed up. Usually, the week before they release the next batch of software busters, the previous patches are safe to install.
I’ve been relying on Woody to let me know on my Win 7 computers for years, so I have been doing the same on my Win 10 computers since I got ‘em.

So far.....so good. Problem is, the more complex they make the operating system, and all the software....the worse it will get.
Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.
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SteveHGraham
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Re: Engineers really know their stuff

Post by SteveHGraham »

In other news, my John Deere 430, which came with a non-repairable hydraulic cylinder that didn't last 700 hours, is leaking again. My guess is that the forward fitting, which doesn't have a $2 swivel on it, loosened because the hose had to be twisted in order to be installed.

Went to Northern tool and bought two swivels. Now I have to deal with the poor design, which makes the tractor hard to work on.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
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