Austin K. Williams wrote:
<All of pompous, largely irrelevent, screed snipped; no need to
replicate it, one copy in the archives is enough>
Thank you very much Mr. Williams; I think we are all now clear on "who
in the hell you think you are". You did realize that was a rhetorical
question right? ;) I was not certain that I could find the right words
to describe you, but I was certain that you could; give some people a
petard, and they will hoist themselves on it.
Since you have constructed an impervious wall around yourself, there
is virtually no chance that you will understand what I or others say
here. But some readers may be tempted to think you know what you are
talking about, so I will just clear up a point or two.
The majority of your screed consisted of fawning self admiration mixed
with plain falsehoods, which you have repeatedly placed in your posts
in this thread; I only intend to address one or two parts of your
post, largely where you attempt to create a stereotype to which you
believe I fit. Your stereotype is a total fabrication; and if you are
thinking of getting into the fiction writing business, I suggest you
keep your day job.
First, you have never acurately addressed the issue with Bruce Lee;
because you have no case. If Bruce Lee offended you and offered you no
value, you were always free to filter him out ... you never needed
hear from him again. But you did not do that, so whatever problem his
posts gave you were of your own making ... he certainly was not
seeking you out. You like to think that you are a superior person, but
you're not, and waiting around to pounce on Bruce showed some of your
true colors. Bruce has not posted here for over a year, and you, and
others, are still fretting about him ... try getting a life.
And you published some total falsehoods about me: I never "hung on"
any of Bruce' words, he was no longer posting when I began ... as far
as I know, I never read a "live" post from him; I have read some of
his posts in the archives, mostly to see what all the fuss is about.
Your characteriztion of him, as with most of your other
characterizations, is exagerated to the point of near falsehood, to
make you look better. If you call his posts in the thread you pointed
to "shrill" (and that is your best example), I'd have to say you don't
know what shrill is - but you definitely know it's a negative term, so
you use it. Bruce was no hero of mine, not close. It was never about
Bruce per se, as I think you well know; while you throw the term
"hero" out as an epithet, you are really trying to redirect people's
attention from the fact that my response was about *you*, not Bruce.
You have no regard for other people: in your overblown lingo (not
mine), Bruce Lee was nowhere near being a hero, but you are a villain.
Are we clear on what I am talking about now?
Second, all my values were established long before there was a
Quicken, an Intuit, or a pc; I did not pick them up as I went along in
this group, and they have not changed while I have been here. I have
no specific love of Intuit over any other company, and I am fully
aware of Quicken's problems. I have said that I think Quicken is a
good product, never a perfect one. I have never at any time stated or
even implied that "Quicken works fine, Intuit can do no wrong, users
are a bunch of ungrateful wretches"; because I have never thought
that. I have never attempted to discourage anyone from making a
legitmate beef about Quicken's failings, indeed some of the best posts
in this group have been from people who have taken the time to
investigate and document Quicken bugs and design flaws. But there is a
big difference between constructive criticism (it takes time and
thought) and destructive criticism (it's cheap and useless, and often
just plain nasty): I favor the former; in fact I can not think of a
single good reason for the latter. There is no chance that destructive
criticism will produce better software than constructive criticism;
the opposite is much more likely. And I do know a bit about the design
and creation of software, Mr. Williams.
Destructive criticism usually comes from someone who is ticked off and
wants a scape goat to take their anger out on; I really see no reason
to encourage that attitude. For example, frequently posters who feel
this way, begin a new thread by announcing that they have found a bug
in Quicken ... later to find out they found no such thing. Better to
start out trying to solve a problem than looking for a scapegoat. Now
that the term "bug" is in common use, there are many people rushing to
use it, not because they really understand what it means, but because
they know it is "bad" and they want to say something bad about someone
or something. For an example, you can look in the thread that you
referred to here (which you are so proud of yourself about). The op
was absolutely certain that the Capital Gains report had a bug; but he
was wrong, the Capital Gains report works just as it was designed and
just as the Quicken help says it works, and apparently, the way it has
always worked. Granted, at one point, the op conceded that it would be
nice to change the way the report worked; but he was basically more
interested in establishing that Quicken/Intuit was bad than he was in
a solution - he even refused help. If I had been posting at the time,
I would have pointed out that there was no bug, and that he should
submit a suggestion to Intuit to create a new report or modify the
existing one - he would have had just as much chance of success,
especially if he left out the rhetoric. And that poster was one of the
nicer, better informed, ones when it comes to the destructive
criticisms.
Apparently you are defending bashing because you engage in it
yourself; but I fail to see where you or anyone else have, or can,
demonstrate that this has accomplished anything. Well that's not quite
true; it does help you inflate your already overinflated opinion of
yourself. Your technique is an old one: denigrate others, artificially
placing them beneath you, and in the process you naturally, but
artificially, rise higher ... in your own estimation. (Works against
companies too; makes you sound like you know what you're talking about
and that, if they just listened to you, they'd be a great company,
instead of the horrible one you say they are). It's cheap
self-delusion. Naturally there are no guarantees that bug reports or
product suggestions will be acted upon (and almost certainly some will
not be); but how in the world does a person translate that into a
necessity to bash other people, products or companies? Where is the
software that is now much better because of destructive criticism of
it?
You, and those who seek to bash, are really cheap shot artists; and if
you don't know that it isn't helpful, you should. I doubt you've ever
designed any software; if you had I can't believe you would take the
position you have. Every program ever written has bugs, and design
flaws; many, if not most, data base designs can, especially after the
fact, be found to have imperfections. This is not news to anyone who
knows anything about software; it *would* be news to find a perfect
product; or even a product which pleased every user. All software (and
every product) is the result of necessary compromises (there will
never be enough time, money and expertise to avoid the compromises);
compromises which guarantee that the software will not be perfect;
followed by the programming work of always fallible human beings
(yourself excluded, of course) which add to the problem by introducing
bugs. Testing too is constrained by time and money; testing will never
insure bug free products. Design compromises and their results are
inevitible, they are dictated by reality; noting that the compromises,
or their results, exist does not earn the noter any right to claim
foul; they are just valid considerations when deciding what product
you want to use. Fixing or improving the results is an ongoing job for
software manufacturers, and it is just as subject to marketplace
competition as any other aspect of software manufacture, and users do
not require bashers to discover if another product is better for them;
again good old constructive criticism - coupled with investigations of
the alternatives - will produce at least as good a result ... without
any need to get nasty.
And in order to keep producing new and/or improved software, the
companies that produce that software must make a profit - something
you seem offended by. It is true that the need to make a profit plays
a part in the compromise choices and it does mean that some users will
find some aspects of the product not to their liking. If a company is
very bad at managing the compromises and satisfying users, they will
go out of business; or possibly have some internal shakeup to produce
a new set of standards for making those compromises. But by and large,
the best possible products are out there now, they have stood the
marketplace test of time ... though their replacements could be being
worked on at this moment. (Don't think I am banking on Intuit always
suceeding or Quicken always being there or there never being any
changes I won't want to accept. When and if changes occur, I will just
re-evaluate the situation and choose the best option; I can easily
live with the results of the marketplace; no gnashing of teeth or
wringing of hands, no tears, no problem. If Intuit falters, there will
always be another company to take their place; if another product
clearly and consistently beats Quicken - for me - I will gladly
switch. Indeed, I hope that such a product *is* being worked on, I
want companies to entice me to use better products).
For a person to single out a particular problem with a piece of
software - *any* software, from *any* company - and propose that their
discovery proves that the software or the company is no good is, as I
said, just cheap shotting. The same thing can be done to every piece
of software, therefore it does not produce any distinguishing
characteristic to judge the software by - so please stop patting
yourself on the back. The marketplace is very good at sorting out the
good companies with the good software from the bad companies or the
bad software over time; but the marketplace is not really under
anyone's control and it takes time to work; it can feel frustrating to
want a product to work differently, not be able to get that to happen,
and to not like any of the alternatives. But, surprise, that is how
the world works, it is hardly unique to software. Yet it certainly
seems to trouble you and the other bashers. Again, get a life.
I am interested in seeing the best software "possible"; there is no
possiblity of getting perfect software, so I do not consider shooting
for it. (Perfect software would not only be bug free, and design flaw
free, but it would do everything that every user would ever want ...
not going to happen). The way things work, it is an absolute certainty
that there will be disappointed users (I too have wishes for Quicken
that are unsatisfied - I just express them without rancor when I
express them at all); but if you are holding out the hope that by
submitting volumes of nasty grams things will start to work
differently, then you are holding out a totally false hope.
While your halcyon days chatting with the software engineers at Intuit
are long gone; I do happen to agree that Intuit could do a better job
of getting/staying in touch with user desires. All good software is a
reflection of user desires, but it is not easy to produce a product
that can satisfy a million users ( or however many Quicken has) - and
it is *very* easy for a few users, with "shrill" rhetoric, to make the
product appear far worse than it is. I do think that Intuit might be
insulating themselves too much from feedback, though it really is hard
to tell because I am very inclined to believe that they do read what
gets posted at their web site (I find it extremely difficult to
believe that they are suicidal enough to simply deep-six everything
that comes in there). We do not know what all bug reports have been
filed, we do not know how well those bug reports were constructed (if
the problem is not reproducable, it is very likely it will not get
fixed ... of course it is also possible that it is not a bug if it can
not be reproduced). We do not know what product suggestions were
submitted, so we can not be certain what choices Intuit had to select
from. And there is that 900 pound gorilla in Redmond who's activities
have a direct bearing on what options Intuit has.
I don't think things can ever work as they did before because I do not
believe it is economically feasible - too hard to find people capable
enough to be software engineers, and thick skinned enough to put up
with flames every day. Who in the world would want that job? But, I
would definitely support something like the Microsoft approach where
Intuit would host newsgroups for their products, with folks like the
MS MVP's to act as buffers. The MVP's are very knowledgeable in my
experience, and almost always very helpful. And in that environment it
seems that it is occasionally possible to communicate directly with a
MS computer engineer ... though it is their choice, and did not seem
to be frequent. But I do not believe that contact would need to be
frequent because - hopefully - the MVP's *do* get to communicate
directly with the software engineers and from what I could see, they
would do a good job of carrying the news.
If you can produce a better product than Intuit, as you seem to
insinuate you know how to do; you should crawl out from under that
bridge and do it. And if you can run Intuit better than it's current
management, you should apply for the job, or buy up lots of shares and
vote in the people you think can do the job. Because if you, and all
the bashers, are right, there is a huge opportunity to make tons of
money at Intuit while creating a significantly better product ... and
it's oh so easy to do. But unfortunately for you, it's not that easy,
it would take time and work and it would take skills you don't have,
and hell, not only would you be out of a scape goat, you'd *be* the
scape goat; that would be a sight to see. When you have proven
yourself and put your money where your mouth is, perhaps someone will
actually care what you say (though you definitely need to brush up on
your people skills, which I think would be even tougher for you than
running Intuit). Until that time Mr Williams, you may be a power user,
but you are also an irrelevant gas bag (and just as dispensible as
anyone) and a pathetic loser.
Oh, all the questions above are rhetorical ;), so you need not bother
answering them; I feel you have explained yourself quite thoroughly
now.
--
John Pollard
j underscore pollard at mindspring dot com