I get that, I really do. But, darn it all...
Years ago I worked for Volvo Truck NA (we built the big long-haul tractors).
We were a WordPerfect shop, and one of my unofficial responsibilities was to
struggle with each new version of WP. I'd report all problems, work with their
customer support, and after a while (usually a month or so) I'd tell my boss it
was ready to distribute to everyone else.
"But wait", you ask, "was it really so buggy? Didn't that bother you?" Yes,
it was, and I always said well, just how do you test for every combination of
machine and OS and likely use in the world? It can't be done. So I wasn't
surprised or dismayed at the process.
One year I was busy with something else and just didn't have the time to go
through it. Somehow in the delay, the company changed to MS Word. Many of us
hated the change ("where's reveal-codes mode?!"), and I still have major
complaints with some aspects of Word. But a) it's too late; it's taken over
the world, and anyway b) it was too late, it took over Volvo. But the main
point here is that despite what I argued in WP's defense, Word didn't have
those bugs to struggle with at each new release.
Yeah, I know even MS isn't perfect. And the recent disaster wouldn't have been
nearly such a disaster if MS weren't so ubiquitous; we need diversity in
computer hardware and software to keep stuff like this from wiping us out (as
Cliff Stoll points out).
---
Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313
/* Doing the right thing is always doing the right thing. Even if nobody else
is doing it. -Reddit user LordCoale in _The Mercy of Humans_ */
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
Paul Gilmartin
Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2024 13:08
--- On Sun, 21 Jul 2024 10:49:04 -0400, Phil Smith III wrote:
....I heard of a product that crashed reproducibly at customer sites having 8
or more tape drives. Who does that in a test lab!>
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