Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Christmas In Rome

My wife and I had the pleasure of spending Christmas in Rome this year. It was one of the trips that made you sad that the vacation was over. As I walked around Rome it is hard not to recognize the beauty of the arts, architecture and tradition. These magnificent buildings built centuries ago still inspire architects today. The great thinkers of that time were innovators and they did it without 3-d modeling software or hi tech tools as what they had was far more powerful, freedom, imagination and vision. They started with nothing and turned it into something amazing.

When I finally got back to work, I flipped on my computer and the 15 minute wore out Windows boot process commenced. I sat there sipping my coffee watching the screen and I couldn’t help but think just how pathetic Microsoft and our society have become. These individuals can build great coliseums and Microsoft can’t even boot up a glorified calculator in less time then it takes me to finish my coffee. It is no wonder why Vista is a failure and furthermore Visual Studio is only alive due to spin, cheerleading and lack of a competing product. People are bored with the lack of thought, the bloat and being forced to use a product that is unstable and essentially they hate.

In the technology age we have lost our ability to think, innovate and create. We/Microsoft have become slaves to a used up, wore out Windows paradigm. Worse yet we keep adding to the bloated paradigms with fluff, a cosmetic change here and there to the UI, bloating some framework with fad technologies that becomes non-existent in a year a two only to be replaced with another fad technology. Yet our corporate culture, arrogance and pride keeps us hostage to the same old failing models that we keep spinning, repackaging and marketing to give the impression they are far better then what they really are, right Scott Gu?

Then in glaring ultimate stupidity Microsoft is trying to isolate all our applications into their failed wore out .BLOAT paradigm. Our innovation is trapped by the classes of BLOAT as we become too lazy or incompetent to innovate therefore we remained locked into the legacy windows API technology better known as the .NET framework. Moreover Microsoft would like nothing better to stifle innovation further by tightening up development environments so we are limited too what Microsoft’s think is best for us. VC++, Visual Basic, FoxPro and other golden age development tools (anything pre .bloat) had their own identity a feature missing in Visual Studio. Microsoft should be embarrassed by the rut they are in and even more disasterous they are doing their best to pull us in and why GREED - to protect the Windows legacy and monopoly.

I guess the next great technology break through or operating system will occur as soon as a non-microsoft entity develops it, then Microsoft can steal their idea. The only bad part is it will become part of the BLACKHOLE of .BLOAT and suck as bad as what we currently have. Doesn't this sound like MVC and EDM?

Could you imagine if the great architects of Rome owned a software company today? Perhaps Microsoft would be out of business, the "CHEAP" labor of India would no longer be a drag on the technology sector of the American economy and my computer would boot up before I finished my coffee.

Wishing you a happy 2009!
.Mark