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September 15, 2005
ZOMG Another Load of Microcrap
You can wash your hands after every visit to the lavatory, but no amount of preventive cleanliness can protect you from contracting whatever sickness that one snot-nosed, contagion-ridden kid will inevitably sneeze into your face. It's an exercise in futility.
And now it looks like MS is poised to blow a big snot bubble all over the multimedia development sector in the form of Acrylic, Sparkle, and Quartz; sounds like a collection of cheap jewelry personally.
Once again, MS is mimicking something that has been around for sometime, and true to form, draping it in marketing wordplay by making the claim that their "innovation" remedies a long-standing disconnect (in this case the divide between design and development), and that we (the displaced designers and developers of the world) are now free! Free of the burden of not being able to do the things we've always been able to do! Hello?! Does anyone else get this? They're like the damned Bush Administration. What reason are we in Iraq this week, Rummy? Ah, but I digress…
"Historically, it's been difficult for developers and designers to work well together."
-- The Register
Really? Wow! That might explain the voices in my head. As a designer/developer, I have struggled throughout my short life to get anything of consequence accomplished; what with the two sides of my brain lacking a suitable software suite to get things done. I am giddy with anticipation at the release of this new MS Jewelry Box Dreamset. My daughter will love it! She's this many years old. *holds up fingers* I hope it comes with a tiara or a crown. That'd make her day! ^_^
The only communication gap that exists between designers and developers lies in the fact that designers -- being an out-there, right-brained lot -- ofttimes conceive visions that developers can't immediately deliver, and developers -- being a proud, left-brained lot -- ofttimes are loathe to admit that the reason something "can't be done" is because they themselves lack the know-how to do it. Anything can be achieved given enough time, money, and desire.
But when you let pure designers control development, you end up with stunning, fluid, usable interfaces that are inflexible, bloated coding nightmares under the hood. In contrast, letting strict developers control design results in flexible, lean, robustly coded interfaces that are ugly, clunky, and counter-intuitive in their usability. That's where multimedia developers come in.
This stalwart lot walk the line between design and development, forsaking complete acceptance from either side that they might serve as the bridge between these two thought factions. I am one such person.
My designer friends insist I am a developer as my long hours spent writing clean, concise, flexible, well documented code leaves me myopic to any real design vision. My developer friends insist I am a designer as my long hours spent lovingly crafting visual and audial media somehow render me impotent of any real programming understanding. Is this their respective ways of saying I'm not good enough to be completely either? Maybe so. But I am good enough to be much of both. Elitist bitches. ;) Luv ya all.
And for the record, I've seen more designers don the hat of developer (some even becoming damn fine developers in their own right) in an effort to bridge that divide than I have seen developers.
So thanks, MS but I'm not buying in. Your tools will not make designers better understand developers or vice versa. Face it. Nothing you do changes the world. Only the things you gobble up and poop out do. Sadly, mainstream consumers are like flies that way. You'll bundle just enough of this shit with your next OS to get the masses hooked, and they'll flock to your side because they don't know any better. Not a particularly nice thing to say of the masses, but it's true. People are collectively stupid. Only as individuals do we shine.
" Microsoft will hope it can tempt users whose old Adobe and Macromedia licenses are set to expire,…"
-- ibid.
Expire? Our licenses don't expire, you asshat. This isn't some goddamned enterprise-level subscription licensing scheme. You buy the software and register it. It's your's forever! (or until you stop using it... or your OS stops running it.) When a newer version of the software is released you can pay to upgrade your license or stick with the current version you have. Older versions of software don't just magically stop working when a new version comes out! (Unless it's Apple Quicktime Pro -- I love Apple, but you guys are fuckers too!) Expire? Please. Idiots. Liars. More marketing bullshit.
"Our focus is on an area that has not been a focus of others like Adobe – print has been their primary focus. Macromedia’s… focus is more of a marketing context and ours is more applications."
-- ibid.
Our focus is more on applications?! WTF?! No shit, Sherlock, that's the focus of everyone here. MS, Adobe, Macromedia, they all make applications! That's like saying, "Oh ya, Ferrari and Porsche focus on building ultra high performance racing machines, but we focus more on making cars and stuff." Your statement said nothing. It only served to make it sound like um, ya know, something is like... missing from like... somewhere, oh... and Adobe and Macromedia ain't all that... yeah! Oh and that your K-car is a million times better than Ferraris and Porsches because... well, you say so.
Now if you mean that your focus is the development of applications, well then, that's another matter entirely. Because Macromedia Director is one primo multimedia application development tool that has been around in one form or another since before 1988, biotch! So I can see how it could be overlooked.
Are those blinders you're wearing? Heh. Company issue? Ah, I see. Sporty.
"Our goal is to redefine what is considered a 'good enough' user experience today through integrated development and design capability."
-- TechTree.com
You insult me, sir. The "good enough" user experience is dictated by the not-necessarily-creatively-minded views of MBA's and other execs. Designers design. Developers develop. Executives fuck things up. I can't tell you how many times a fine outstanding, truly innovative product idea has been pecked away at by a bunch of corporate asshats who think they know anything about good product design, usability, and value!
"Ultimately this is about enabling mainstream adoption of user experience within both business and end-user applications, resulting in richer differentiated experiences on the web and the smart client that promote business opportunity and productivity", said Rudder.
-- ibid.
What the hell did you just say? Mainstream adoption of user experience? Any experience good or bad is just that: an experience. That's like saying, "Ultimately this is about enabling the mainstream adoption of using our lungs to breathe." Go peddle your snake oil somewhere else.
Marketing weenies. Hate em.
Yes, yes, yes, MS is a ginormous, multi-billion dollar company, and I'm just an medium-sized, multi-trillion celled organism. What do I know? Even Bill Gates admits that there are lots of companies out there that do things better than MS does. MS is not the best at anything except being okay at everything, which is still saying something. It's kind of like a quantity over quality thing.
When you get right down to it, I don't mind their products one way or another, I just resent their repeated claims that they're innovating anything at all. Making your own version of something, or adapting it to only work in your world, doesn't make you an innovator, it just makes you a copy machine.
Posted by Tacitus at September 15, 2005 03:00 PM