Sick and tired of MS bashing

NickW posts an interesting snippet about IE7 and as usual with Microsoft related subjects the anti-ms/pro linux comments come back (rather than discussion of the topic)
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/1503

It makes me sick.

As usual this thread will go into
- Ms is evil
- Linux is good
- IE is insecure
- MS is insecure
- Linux is secure
- Firefox is secure
- Blah

Booooooring. And wrong. But who cares, it's the "done thing" to knock MS and score nerd points with the /. community isn't it?

90% of problems with IE and windows are between the keyboard and chair. The same problems are there with other platforms but are not exploited as much or as publicly. Yes there are faults with IE, who HASN'T had a problem with IE? But that does NOT make IE bad. Nor do Windows problems make Windows bad, or any worse than Linux. Heck, maybe that is why MS will release a new version of windows and a service pack or two. What? Software with faults?? Who has ever heard of that! Gimme a break.

For the average user the experience of one browser over another is barely noticeable. Try it, get some numpty users to use IE then some other browser. Once you have held their hand through the differences in interface (even the most subtle can frighten a numpty) they will not really care much. If they get IE by default then that is what they will use and they will not thank you for putting anything else on instead.

Why these discussions always turn towards A) MS is evil and B) Linux is the dogs ^H I don't know. Have you ever tried taking a Joe Public users windows machine away and replacing everything they know and are comfortable with to some other OS? You don't just get minor difficulties like replacing browsers, you get tears (no kidding), anger, frustration, depression.

I really should stop posting to communities that degenerate into these sorts of discussions. I would, but ALL of them seem to. Even the ASP.NET ones. It seems nerds feel the need to boost their ego by bashing MS. It's sad.

Wherever I post people usually know that I have certain biases towards Microsoft. I make no secret of the fact that the last maybe 15 years of my career have been pretty much influenced by Microsoft software. In the same timeframe though I have used all sorts of platforms as my daily working tool. I was a SCO unix sysadmin, a perl developer, Borland C, delphi, Java, Smalltalk etc. My personal preference has always been for Microsoft software but I always respect others choices.

Why is it that when Microsoft is mentioned we have to have this debate?? 

To be fair to Threadwatch, I may have jumped the gun - the community there is a little better than ..uh.. some other webmaster communities but I have developed quite a twitchy trigger finger on this subject you may have guessed ;O)

5 Comments

  • I sort of agree with you and sort of disagree with you. It's extremely frustrating to pick up a Linux magazine and find nothing but "bash Microsoft" inside it - truth is it put me right off even using Linux. It appears to be the same with ANY of the books or web sites training users up on CSS. Invariably any CSS tutorial or book turns into a "bash Microsoft and internet explorer" rant.



    On the other hand I am stupefied at how basic some of the bugs in Microsoft products are. Try saying you want a label on a Windows form right-aligned and bold (not unusual with text boxes and descriptive text alignment) and see how the label gets cut off at the right hand edge so that it's virtually unreadable. This bug was there in the beta of .Net 2002 and it's been there ever since. It's a fairly basic requirement and function yet it's broken and has been for a long time.



    Then there's all the horrid CSS non-compliance in IE which involve serious amounts of effort to workaround and are the cause of a lot of performance problems (we just can't switch to using CSS instead of lots of table because of all the IE vs the rest of the world bugs) and the complete lack of standards-compliant accessible HTML generated by the .Net web controls.



    Why do Microsoft spend so much time and money on all the gimmicky obscure stuff but not even get these basics right. How difficult would it be to ensure that any ASP.NET application DIDN'T generates IE-specific attributes, attributes that aren't required and don't validate against W3C standards, attributes that break xhtml compliance or (even in Whidby 2) that generate tags that have been deprecated for a long time now (Whidby still generates b tags instead of strong tags for its server controls). Accessibility is a pretty hot topic with recent laws having been passed and yet Microsoft seem to be happier playing with complex wizards and obscure functionality the world doesn't really want instead of getting the very basic stuff right. I believe this continual frustration at "hype" (see Opera CEO's response to Bill Gate's claims on inter-operability for a very strong argument about how hyped the typical announcement is when compared with the reality of what's delivered) is where most of this Microsoft-bashing stems from and while I agree that it seems unfair that the vehemence seems much stronger when Microsoft make the mistake than it is when Apple/Netscape or whoever makes a similar mistake, that doesn't alter the fact that such mistakes cost developers the world over a fortune in time and money that a simple bit of quality control or understanding of the standards could have fixed.

  • "Why these discussions always turn towards A) MS is evil and B) Linux is the dogs ^H I don't know. "



    That's easy: Microsoft has won the battle for the desktop and is the easiest target to hit. Combine that with Microsoft's aggressive business practices and all the resentment they have engendered in the technical community, you have a perfect recipie for Microsoft bashing.



    Also, people tend to root for the underdog...

  • You might consider me a numpty, that's fine. I had my first go around with windows in 1995. I like windows because I do find it easier to use than most ops I've tried. The fellows at MS have done a remarkable job of creating an interface that a Joe Citizen, everyday, idiot like me can get some use out of. Maybe the MS bashers need to design their own interface, seeing how they are much better software engineers than Bill has working for him.

  • I love MS. I've worked with Linux for 4 years, and I hate it. I can't comment on Macs because I've never used them. Coding against .NET is a dream. I don't root for the underdog--I root for exellence.



    I do agree that MS isn't without its faults though--but the net balance is that MS produces a platform that gives me great pleasure to work in.

  • If you don't have something good to sell, then talk bad about the competition. :)

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